2012 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships


The 2012 IIHF U20 World Championship was the 36th edition of the Ice Hockey World Junior Championship. It was hosted in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It began on December 26, 2011, and ended with the gold medal game played in Calgary on January 5, 2012. Sweden defeated defending-champion Russia 1–0 in overtime to win their first title in 31 years. Russian forward Evgeny Kuznetsov was named MVP of the tournament. Denmark was relegated to Division I and Germany was promoted to the 2013 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.
Canada missed the final for the first time in 11 years when they lost 6–5 against Russia in a semifinal in which Canada were down 6–1 halfway through the third period. However, the Canadians extended their consecutive medal streak at the tournament to 14 with a 4–0 victory over Finland in the bronze medal game. The fourth-place finish for Finland was their best result in the tournament since 2006. The United States ended up in the relegation round for the first time since 1999.

Host city selection

On February 1, 2008, Hockey Canada and the Canadian Hockey League announced that six groups had submitted letters of intent to bid to host the 2012 tournament: Calgary/Edmonton; Halifax, Nova Scotia; London/Windsor, Ontario; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Toronto; and Winnipeg. The London/Windsor, Halifax and Winnipeg bids withdrew before the application deadline, leaving three groups. Saskatoon was selected to host the 2010 tournament with Regina, Saskatchewan, leaving only the Calgary/Edmonton and Toronto bids for this tournament.
The Alberta bid, supported by the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers as well as the Western Hockey League's Calgary Hitmen and Edmonton Oil Kings, was selected to host the tournament on August 28, 2008. It will be the second time the tournament has been hosted in the province; Red Deer served as the primary host of the 1995 World Junior Championship, while some tournament games were played in both Calgary and Edmonton.

Venues

Attendance

As part of their bid, the two cities projected that they would generate a tournament record attendance in excess of 475,000 fans and provide an economic benefit of $42 million to the province of Alberta. Following a reserved offering of 10- and 21-game ticket packs for Edmonton and Calgary games respectively to season ticket holders of the Oilers, Oil Kings, Flames and Hitmen, the tournament committee held a lottery to award the right to purchase the remaining seats. While the entry deadline was supposed to coincide with the conclusion of the 2011 tournament, organizers were flooded with so many entries that their website servers crashed. Organizers were overwhelmed by the response; over 187,000 entries were received for the draw.
Calling the demand unprecedented, Hockey Canada announced that the 17,000 ticket packages made available to lottery winners had sold out in a matter of days, a year in advance of the tournament. While organizers were pleased with the result, the way the lottery was handled has angered fans who won the right to purchase tickets but were unable to do so as no tickets were left when their turn to buy arrived.
Ultimately, a new attendance record was set, but not by the margin initially anticipated. The total of 455,342 fans was 2,060 fans more than the previous record of 453,282 from 2009. Though many more tickets were sold as part of tournament packages, the IIHF only counts actual paid spectators in attendance in its figures.

Top division

Each round was a round-robin tournament, where the teams played each other once within their group. The Preliminary Round was divided into two groups: Group A and Group B, which included five teams each. From each group, the top three teams qualified for the playoffs; the 1st-ranked teams earned a direct trip to the Semifinals, while the 2nd and 3rd-ranked teams qualified for the Quarterfinals. The 4th and 5th-ranked teams had to play in the Relegation Round, where the three best teams qualified for the Top Division tournament in 2013, with the last-placed team being relegated to the 2013 Division I tournament. In the Semifinals, the directly-qualified Semifinalists faced the winners from the Quarterfinals.

Rosters

Preliminary round

Group A

All round robin games held in Calgary, Alberta, at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
TeamGPWOTWOTLLGFGAPtsAdvanced to
42200261110Semifinals
4301023510Quarterfinals
4200211176Quarterfinals
4101212164Relegation Round
400048310Relegation Round

All times local

Group B

All round robin games held in Edmonton, Alberta, at Rexall Place.
TeamGPWOTWOTLLGFGAPtsAdvanced to
4400026512Semifinals
4300119109Quarterfinals
4200212116Quarterfinals
4100316153Relegation Round
400046380Relegation Round

All times local

Relegation round

The results from matches between teams from the same group in the preliminary round were carried forward to this round.
Legend
Advance to the 2013 World Junior Championships
Relegated to Division I A for 2013

TeamGPWOTWOTLLGFGAPts
330002569
311011085
301027182
300217172

All times local

Final round

;Bracket

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Fifth place game

Bronze medal game

Final

Statistics

Scoring leaders

PosPlayerCountryGPGAPts+/−PIM
1Evgeny Kuznetsov76713+64
2Max Friberg69211+422
3Mikael Granlund72911+40
4Mark Stone67310+102
5Teemu Pulkkinen76410+42
6Ryan Strome6369+98
6Austin Watson6369+60
8Nikita Gusev7369+50
9Jonathan Huberdeau6189+816
10Nail Yakupov7099+46
GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; +/− = Plus/Minus; PIM = Penalties In Minutes
Source:

Goaltending leaders

PosPlayerCountryTOIGAGAASv%SO
1Andrei Vasilevski298:31102.0195.312
2Mark Visentin200:0851.4394.381
3Sami Aittokallio310:00132.5293.691
4Petr Mrázek361:30152.4992.791
5Scott Wedgewood148:4862.4291.551
TOI = Time On Ice ; SA = Shots Against; GA = Goals Against; GAA = Goals Against Average; Sv% = Save Percentage; SO = Shutouts
Source:

Tournament awards

;Most Valuable Player
;All-star team
;IIHF best player awards
Team
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th

Medalists

Source:

Gold medal celebration

Sweden's gold medal win was their first since 1981, as well as their second gold medal in total. The gold medal was celebrated on January 7, 2012, in front of over 6,000 fans at Kungsträdgården in Stockholm.

Division I

Division I A

The Division I A tournament was played in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, from 11 to 17 December 2011.
TeamGPWOTWOTLLGFGAPts
5500034915
53011211010
5300219139
5120216127
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Division I B

The Division I B tournament was played in Tychy, Poland, from 12 to 18 December 2011.
TeamGPWOTWOTLLGFGAPts
5400119612
530119710
521021498
5201216127
5200312256
501049202

Division II

Division II A

The Division II A tournament was played in Donetsk, Ukraine, from 12 to 18 December 2011.
TeamGPWOTWOTLLGFGAPts
53200241013
53020191111
5210224158
5200314226
511039235
500239182

Division II B

The Division II B tournament was played in Tallinn, Estonia, from 10 to 16 December 2011.
TeamGPWOTWOTLLGFGAPts
5500044915
54001511412
5300218269
5110317235
5100412363
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Division III

The Division III tournament was played in Dunedin, New Zealand, from 16 to 22 January 2012. Although originally scheduled to participate, North Korea withdrew from the tournament for unspecified reasons.
TeamGPWOTWOTLLGFGAPts
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400041380