Ice Hockey World Championship in Boxing Style

[Noma]

The Unofficial Football World Championships is way of calculating the world's best soccer team using a knock-out title system similar to that used in boxing and wrestling. I became interested in what country could be holding that title now in ice hockey and did a little research. I started my work from the first national match I found: France-Bohemia January 23rd 1909, which France won 8-1. A total of 27 countries have been World Champions since then.

Now the title is held by Slovakia who claimed it by winning Germany 4-1 February 11st this year. Next time they will be defending the title April 1st against Finland.

Not very surprisingly, Canada has the most days as champion, 10 041 days, about 27 and a half years. Here's the top 10:
1. Canada 27y 6m
2. Soviet Union 19y 6m
3. England 16y 1m
4. USA 6y 9m
5. Sweden 6y 4m
6. Czechoslovakia 5y 5m
7. France 4y 6m
8. Russia 3y
9. Finland 2y 5m
10. Czech Republic 2y 4m

Sweden has however got to arrange the most championship parties winning the previous champions 66 times. Top 10:
1. Sweden 66
2. Canada 58
3. Czechoslovakia and Finland 41
5. Soviet Union 40
6. USA and Czech Republic 28
8. Russia 23
9. Switzerland 15
10. Slovakia 9

The complete statistics can be found here.

I had to make one exception to the rules, because after the match Scotland-Canada March 5th 1948 Scotland never played any games against other opponent than England and the championship would have been bouncing between these two countries and eventually ended to Scotland, who haven't played any games since 1993. I transfered the championship to Great Britain after that match.

The data has been collected from this site: http://www.nationalteamsoficehockey.com/mens.html

Click to read more...

 

[Noma]

Finland won Slovakia 3-1 and is now holding the title - at least until tomorrow when they face the Slovaks again.

 

[Sanderson]

That's some fun stuff, especially seeing the minor countries get it now and then.

Though there is one minor hickup, the list has Denmark beating Norway November 2010, but the next entry is Switzerland beating the Czech Rep. in December. Shouldn't a team have beaten Denmark?

 

[Noma]

That's some fun stuff, especially seeing the minor countries get it now and then.

Though there is one minor hickup, the list has Denmark beating Norway November 2010, but the next entry is Switzerland beating the Czech Rep. in December. Shouldn't a team have beaten Denmark?

Yes, the game was Switzerland-Denmark, fixed it now.

 

[Noma]

Germans are world champions!

Germany beat Finland 4-2 today and they are now current world champions, at least until April 25th when they play against Belarus in their only(?) remaining exhibition game before the actual world championships.

 

[saskriders]

so is this just if someone beats the champs, they are the new champs

 

[Noma]

so is this just if someone beats the champs, they are the new champs

Yep, just like that. Same system that they have in (pro) boxing.

 

[Noma]

Canada is now holding the title after they beat Belarus in the Worlds.

I created a Twitter account @UHWC (Unofficial Hockey World Championships) where I'll publish the new champion every time it changes.

 

[Noma]

Canada lost their title to Russia today. The championships is the Russians' 24th, and 64th combined with the USSR/CIS.

 

[Noma]

Switzerland beat reigning champion Sweden yesterday in an exhibition game and claimed 16th unofficial world championships title of their history. They will defend it against the Swedes again tomorrow.

 

[Frozen]

Sweet and interesting boxing style championship project you have going here. Kind of surprising to see some countries so high on the list even though I knew they were "in the competition" back then in the history.

Congrats to the new champs - Switzerland!

Keep up the good work.

 

[rj]

Yep, just like that. Same system that they have in (pro) boxing.

No the boxing system is a guy wins, never plays anyone worthwhile, eventually vacates or gets stripped, and then you have multiple claimants to the same belt.

 

[Baba Booey]

Ill stick with who wins the big tourneys.

 

[Sanderson]

Ill stick with who wins the big tourneys.

And why is that of any importance?
This is just for fun, nothing wrong with that. You don't see people telling others not to play fantasy-hockey because the real thing is much better. One has nothing to do with the other.

 

[Noma]

Canada claimed 60th UHWC in their history yesterdeay beating Switzerland 2-1 in shootout in an exhibition game. They will defend it against the Swiss tomorrow.

 

[Noma]

In addition to Russia being the official world champions now, they also claimed the 27th UHWC -title in their history.

 

[Noma]

Sweden is now holding both the Unofficial Football World Championship and the Unofficial Hockey World Championship titles. I have no idea if this has happened before, but at least it's not very common.

Sweden will also surpass the USA in 31st of January as the country to have held the title for fifth most days in total.