page_title: Ice Hockey World Championships
section_title: 1920–1928: Olympic Games
hierarchical_section_title: Ice Hockey World Championships / History / 1920–1928: Olympic Games
caption_attribution_description: English: Members of the Winnipeg Falcons hockey team (with an officer and unidentified woman) aboard RMS Grampian, en route to the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. Français&#160;: Membres de l'équipe de hockey des Falcons de Winnipeg (en compagnie d'un officier et d'une femme non identifiée) à bord du RMS Grampian, en route pour les Jeux olympiques de 1920 à Anvers, en Belgique.
context_page_description: The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation. First officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics, it is the sport's highest profile annual international tournament.
  The IIHF was created in 1908 while the European Championships, the precursor to the World Championships, were first held in 1910. The tournament held at the 1920 Summer Olympics is recognized as the first Ice Hockey World Championship. From 1920 to 1968, the Olympic hockey tournament was also considered the World Championship for that year.
  The first World Championship that was held as an individual event was in 1930 in which twelve nations participated. In 1931, ten teams played a series of round-robin format qualifying rounds to determine which nations participated in the medal round. Medals were awarded based on the final standings of the teams in the medal round. In 1951, thirteen nations took part and were split into two groups. The top seven teams played for the World Championship. The other six played for ranking purposes. This basic format would be used until 1992.
context_section_description: The IIHF considers the ice hockey tournament held at the 1920 Summer Olympics to be the first Ice Hockey World Championship. It was organized by a committee that included future IIHF president Paul Loicq. The tournament was played from 23 to 29 April. Seven teams participated: Canada, Czechoslovakia, the United States, Switzerland, Sweden, France and Belgium. Canada, represented by the Winnipeg Falcons, won the gold medal, outscoring opponents 27–1. The United States and Czechoslovakia won the silver and bronze medals respectively. Following the 1921 Olympic Congress in Lausanne, the first Winter Olympics were held in 1924 in Chamonix, France, though they were only officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as such in the following year.
  Subsequently, every Olympic tournament up to and including the 1968 Winter Olympics is counted as the World Championship. Canada won the gold medal at both the 1924 and 1928 Winter Olympics. In 1928, the Swedish and Swiss teams won their first medals–silver and bronze, respectively–and a German team participated for the first time, finishing ninth.
caption: The gold medal-winning Winnipeg Falcons (representing Canada) en route to the 1920 Summer Olympics.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2002:10:25 14:54:11", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3874", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "760", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "448"}