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2010 IIHF World Championship

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2010 IIHF World Championship

The 2010 IIHF World Championship was the 74th IIHF World Championship, an annual international ice hockey tournament. It took place between 7 and 23 May 2010 in Germany. The games were played in the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, SAP Arena in Mannheim, and one game at Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen. The Russian team was the defending champion, having won the previous two championships.

The Czech Republic, after an early 2–3 upset loss to Norway in the preliminary round, ultimately claimed their sixth world championship title by defeating defending champions, two years running, Russia, 2–1 in the final. Sweden won against Germany 3–1 for the bronze medal.

Canada, which three months earlier, had won the 2010 Winter Olympics Men's Ice Hockey Gold on home-ice in Vancouver, after beating the Russians 7–3 in the Quarterfinals, had a disappointing tournament. They clinched the last spot in the playoff round and lost their quarterfinal 2–5 in a rematch versus Russia. They finished 7th overall, their second-worst finish in tournament history, after their 1992 8th-place finish.

The tournament stands as the most watched IIHF championship in history, with an estimated cumulative audience of over 650 million over the course of the tournament and viewers in over 100 countries and dependencies worldwide. It also was a considerable success regarding attendance for the tournament; it ranked as the second most attended ice hockey world championship of all time, narrowly behind the 2004 edition. In total 548,788 people attended, compared with 552,097 in 2004 in the Czech Republic. It since slipped to the fourth place, behind 2014 and 2015 editions.

The host nation of Germany had their best finish at the tournament since it switched to the current 16 nation format, and a player representing Germany (goaltender Dennis Endras) was named MVP for the first time in the history of the championship.

Group A saw the higher seeded team win each match, with the exception of the game between Belarus and Slovakia which was won by Slovakia. Russia topped the group with the full nine points, Slovakia qualified in second and Belarus in third. Kazakhstan was sent to the relegation round, after being promoted to the finals tournament for the first time since 2006.

In Group B the higher seeded team won each match, with the exception of the final group match which saw Switzerland defeat the second-seeded Canadians for the first time in the history of the tournament. This upset led to Switzerland winning the group with nine points, followed by Canada in second and Latvia in third. Italy, back at the finals tournament after missing 2009, lost all its matches and was returned to the relegation round.

Group C action ended with three teams having a record of two wins and one defeat. Norway's upset defeat of Czech Republic caused a controversy when Jaromír Jágr, a famous member of the Czech team, spoke out against other Czech stars turning down the tournament. This later triggered an international hockey dispute, when a column was posted on IIHF.com regarding these comments and about players' turning down invitations to attend. This article was later taken down and René Fasel, president of the IIHF, noted his concern. Sweden, the Czech Republic and Norway all moved on to the qualification round, while France was sent to the relegation after failing to win any matches.

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