ZURICH – The schedule for the 2014 IIHF World Junior Championship in Malmö, Sweden has been announced. Both groups are now set along with all the preliminary round games. The first tickets for the 2013 World Juniors will be released on Thursday February 7th.

Click here for the 2014 World Junior Championship schedule and groups.

2013 World Junior champions USA headline Group A along with the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovakia. Silver medallists and 2014 hosts Sweden are seeded in Group B along with bronze medallists Russia and Switzerland, Finland and Norway.

Some of the game highlights include a match between rivals Sweden and Finland on December 28th, while the last day of the preliminary round will see Canada play the USA and Sweden take on Russia in two big New Year’s Eve games on December 31st. The semi-finals will take place on January 4th with the bronze and gold medal games on January 5th.

In Malmö, the world junior tournament format will also include two more quarter-final games, as the bye to the semi-final for the top seeded teams in each group has been eliminated. Instead, the top four teams in each pool will advance to the quarter-finals. The relegation format has been changed as well – to a best-of-three between the two 5th place finishers.

This will be the sixth time that Sweden will host the event, and the first since Leksand and Mora in 2007.

Tickets will be available on ticnet.se as of 7th February at 9am (CET).