During the recent IIHF Extra-ordinary and Annual Congress, the delegates from the IIHF membership did not only allocate World Championships and other tournaments to future hosts but also amended the IIHF Statutes & Bylaws, several regulations and made a Rule Book update concerning face-offs.

Here’s a short overview of the major decisions:

• The IIHF Council will grow from 13 to 14 members with a new position of a Senior Vice President as of the new Council term 2020-2024
• The roles of the President, the Council, the IIHF Office and the Finance Committee have been amended to reflect the current practice and good corporate governance. The IIHF President shall in the future not be an employee of the IIHF but supervise the execution of the IIHF General Secretary, who will serve as Chief Executive Officer for the IIHF
• As another step in governance, a new Ethics Board will be established as a body separate from the Council that has authority over ethical and integrity matters
• Modifications of the IIHF Statutes & Bylaws (in 2022 and every four years), Regulations and Codes (2019 and every two years) and official playing rules, elections, honours and the admission and expelling of members will in the future be submitted to the voting at Semi-Annual Congresses, usually taking place in autumn. The Annual Congress usually taking place in May will have a bigger focus on sports matters such as the allocation of and reports from tournaments
• The IIHF will not govern inline hockey anymore. That also means there will be no more Inline Hockey World Championship organized by the IIHF. The event planned in 2019 was cancelled earlier due to lack of applicants for hosting it.
• If a female player wants to change her national eligibility after having played for a different national team earlier, the waiting period to change the eligibility and having to play in the new country was reduced from four to two years (730 days). Such a change can be done only once
• The maximum number of teams competing in an IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship category and qualification tournaments has been deleted. This allows the creation of new levels such as a Division IV in the men’s and a Division III in the women’s category as of the upcoming season
• For the allocation of the top-level IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship where all member national associations with voting rights and the IIHF Council can vote, the countries that are participating in the top division at the time of vote will get an additional vote
• The IIHF Sport Regulations were amended with changes that were already in place at the 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in agreement with the teams, namely the new semi-final seeding that does not necessarily follow the classic brackets but will be built with the top-seeded semi-finalist playing the lowest-seeded finalist in the early game and the 2nd-seeded semi-finalist against the 3rd-seeded finalist. The seeding is done based on the team-seeding regulation, taking into account the preliminary-round records according to the following criteria and order: 1) placement in the group, 2) points, 3) goal difference, 4) goals scored, 5) seeding coming into the tournament
• The IIHF Disciplinary Code was amended to address requirements of the World Anti-Doping Agency in terms of procedures and hearings of doping cases
• The IIHF Transfer Regulations were adjusted in terms of transfers of suspended players, transfer fees and players with try-out contracts
• Adjustments were made in the IIHF Rule Book to formalize the false face-off rule that has already been used during the past six months at IIHF tournaments in agreement with the teams. To make the face-off procedure faster, players receive a violation warning while only a second violation in the face-off results in a bench minor penalty for delay of game

The new documents will be made available in the Statutes and in the Rules & Regulations section on IIHF.com later this summer.

Check out the newest edition of the IIHF’s bi-monthly newsletter Ice Times for more news from the Congress and elsewhere from the world of ice hockey.