It's that time of year again! The 2025 IIHF U18 Women's World Championship is set to run from January 4-13, 2025 in Vantaa, Finland.
I (Nicole) will be on the ground covering the tournament with daily posts, mixed zone video content for our paid subscribers and live posting via Twitter/X*.
If you aren't already a subscriber, now would be a really good time to change that.
You can also support the site and Nicole's trip to Finland by making a donation via PayPal.
This is the second year of the updated format. The groups are not weighted as they were in 2023. Instead, the teams are distributed among the two groups according to their finishes at the 2024 tournament in a snake format. Group A is the teams that finished 1, 4, 5 and the team that was promoted. Group B is the teams that finished 2, 3, 6 and 7. As a reminder, USA won gold, Czechia won silver, and Canada won bronze.
The format of the tournament may be the same as last year, but there are just six days of games, compared to eight in 2024. While the 2024 tournament had just one off day scheduled into it, 2025's features three off days. The first four days with games (three round robin and the quarterfinals) feature four games each day. There are two days of games, a day off, the third day of round robin, a day off, quarterfinals, a day off and we close out with semifinals and medals games over the final two days.
Vantaa is a suburb of Helsinki, meaning the tournament be seven hours ahead of Eastern time. The long days in the stadium and the time difference means you can expect a write up of each day posted on the site by the time you get up the next morning.
Teams will play a round robin within their group. Quarterfinal matchups are determined by how teams finish within that group. That classification is determined by:
- points
- head-to-head points
- head-to-head goal difference
- head-to-head number of goals scored
- result against closest best-ranked team outside tied teams
- result against second-best-ranked team outside tied teams
- seeding before tournament.
All eight teams from the Preliminary Round will play a cross-over Quarter-Final game: 1A vs. 4B, 1B vs. 4A, 2A vs. 3B and 2B vs. 3A.
Group A is United States, Finland, Sweden and Japan
Group B is Czechia, Canada, Switzerland and Slovakia
More detailed tournament format information can be found here.
The official site of the tournament, which will have game stories, rosters, stats and more can be found here.
How to Watch
TSN is airing every game that involves Team USA and Team Canada, plus the medal games. NHL Network will carry TSN's feed of games involving Team USA.
Where "no broadcast available" is indicated, this means a North American broadcast. Broadcasts may be available in other countries.
All games below listed in Eastern Time.
Saturday, January 4
- 3:00 AM – Group A, United States vs. Japan (TSN2, NHLN)
- 6:30 AM – Group A, Finland vs. Sweden (no broadcast available)
- 10:00 AM – Group B, Czechia vs. Switzerland (no broadcast available)
- 1:30 PM – Group B, Canada vs. Slovakia (TSN2)
Sunday, January 5
- 3:00 AM – Group A, Sweden vs. United States (TSN2, NHLN)
- 6:30 AM – Group A, Finland vs. Japan (no broadcast available)
- 10:00 AM – Group B, Slovakia vs. Czechia (no broadcast available)
- 1:30 PM – Group B, Canada vs. Switzerland (TSN2)
Tuesday, January 7
- 3:00 AM – Group B, Switzerland vs. Slovakia (no broadcast available)
- 6:30 AM – Group A, Japan vs. Sweden (no broadcast available)
- 10:00 AM – Group A, United States vs. Finland (TSN1/5, NHLN)
- 1:30 PM – Group B, Canada vs. Switzerland (TSN1/5)
Thursday, January 9
- 3:00 AM – Quarterfinal #1 - TBD
- 6:30 AM – Quarterfinal #2 - TBD
- 10:00 AM – Quarterfinal #3 - TBD
- 1:30 PM – Quarterfinal #4 - TBD
Saturday, January 11
- 5:30 AM – Relegation game (no broadcast available)
- 8:00 AM – Semifinal #1 (TSN3/5)
- 11:30 AM – Semifinal #2 (TSN3/5)
Sunday, January 12
- 8:00 AM – Bronze Medal Game (TSN1/5)
- 12:00 PM – Gold Medal Game (TSN1/5)
TSN's schedule showed they'd be airing two quarterfinals as well as the semifinals, and medal games. Presumably they will air the quarterfinals games that the US and Canada are playing in and NHL Network would also air any playoff game involving Team USA. In 2024, the gold medal game was live on ESPN+, but aired on tape delay on NHL Network. The NHL Network broadcast schedule does not currently include any live games after the group stage. See TSN's complete coverage schedule of the U18s here.
How to follow along with Nicole
The IIHF does not allow posting game video from on site, but I'll post pictures from the arena as well as all kinds of pics and videos from my time away from the arena in Finland on my Instagram and will try to share a lot of it to Victory Press' Instagram, as well.
Nicole's Twitter/X
Victory Press' Twitter/X
Nicole's BlueSky
Nicole's Instagram
Victory Press' Instagram
*I would like to move away from posting on Twitter/X but thus far neither USA Hockey nor Hockey Canada have actually posted on BlueSky, though they have created handles. The IIHF has a single post. Other country's federations do not appear to be on BlueSky. Non-rights holders are not allowed to post video, meaning all goals and highlights will most likely be on Twitter/X, which means I will be, too.
