Sweden & Denmark

The 2025 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship will be held in Stockholm, Sweden and Herning, Denmark between 9th of May and 25th of May 2025. It’s the first time the two countries share the arrangement of the tournament.

Ice Hockey in Sweden

Sweden has a long and rich hockey tradition. The national team Tre Kronor have won the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship on 11 occasions and hoisted the cup most recently in 2018.

The top tier leagues in Sweden are SHL (men) and SDHL (women), and the men’s second tier Hockeyallsvenskan is widely renowned as “the best second level league in Europe”.

Sweden had a total of 80 000 licensed players 22/23 which makes hockey the second biggest sport in Sweden. About 100 players in the NHL comes from Sweden.

Legendary players who’ve wore the Tre Kronor-jersey through the years are Börje Salming, Mats Sundin and Niklas Lidström, to name a few.

The list of the famous players active today contains the likes of Mika Zibanejad, William Nylander, Erik Karlsson and Elias Pettersson.

Ice Hockey in Denmark

Despite only having about 6 000 registered players, ice hockey in Denmark is still the most popular winter sport measured on spectators in the top league. Denmark’s national team has continuously been in the Top Division since 2002. Denmark reached their biggest IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship success in 2016 when they reached the quarter finals.

The top tier Metal Ligaen contains 9 teams, there among the Herning Blue Fox that is located in the host city Herning.

Some of the most high profile names in Danish hockey are Frederik Andersen, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Nikolaj Ehlers and Lars Eller.