On May 18, Minsk /BelTA correspondent/. The congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) held in Helsinki has named the venues and dates for 42 tournaments of the next season, which will be held under the auspices of the organization, and also confirmed the venues and dates for the World Championships in the elite division for the coming years, according to the official website of the IIHF. At the congress meeting, it was announced that in 2013 the World Championship will again take place in Stockholm and Helsinki (May 3-19), only this time the main city of the tournament will be the Swedish capital. The 2014 World Championship will be hosted by Minsk (May 9-25), the 2015 World Championship will be held in Prague and Ostrava, Czech Republic (May 1-17), and the 2016 World Forum will be entrusted to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia (April 29 - May 15). As for the 2017 World Championship, the decision on its hosting has been postponed for a year and will be made at the IIHF congress in 2013. This is due to the fact that the International Federation wants to summarize the experience of hosting the current and next World Championships, which, as is known, are held under a new format. Taking into account the analysis of positive and negative aspects, a decision will be made whether to keep this format in the future, and which of the candidates will be better prepared to host the 2017 World Championship. Currently, Denmark, France, Germany, and Latvia have declared their intention to become hosts of this tournament. Thus, the IIHF congress rejected the demands of European and American politicians to move the 2014 World Championship from Belarus to another country. As previously reported, today in Helsinki, in his opening speech at the IIHF congress, the head of the International Ice Hockey Federation, René Fasel, spoke out against moving the 2014 Ice Hockey World Championship from Belarus to another country. "Innocent people - fans and athletes - will suffer from the cancellation of the championship in Belarus. Sport should not be a tool of politics," noted the head of the IIHF. /To be continued/-0-

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