The International Ice Hockey Federation has released the 2021 IIHF Women’s World Ranking following the end of the 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship in Calgary, Canada and determined the groups for the next Women’s Worlds.

In the ranking, which takes into account the results from four years (2018-2021), the United States stay on top and in front of archrival Canada. The ranking continues in the same order with bronze medallist Finland third, Russia/ROC fourth and Switzerland fifth, who will all play in Group A in the next Women’s Worlds following their top-5 finish in Calgary.

The most significant move was made by Hungary, which improved from 12th to 10th place thanks to getting promoted to the top division and finishing there in ninth place.

The 2021 IIHF Women’s World Ranking includes a record number of 42 countries that have been entered in the IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship program for this year.

For points in 2021 the ranking took into consideration the placement of the ten teams participating in the Women’s Worlds. Same as the 2021 IIHF Men’s World Ranking released in June, the points for teams from lower divisions affected by a tournament cancellation are given according to the ranking position of each team in the 2021 Pre-Championship Report – taking into consideration the results in 2018, 2019 and 2020 as it was decided recently by the IIHF Council for a fairer ranking and point distribution during the pandemic.

Groups known, discussions for Women’s Worlds in 2022

The IIHF Council made a proposal to its membership to play the top-level IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship also in Olympic years, however, to avoid having two big tournaments within just two or three months, the Women’s Worlds in Olympic years would take place in August rather than spring. Click here for more information.

If the proposal will be accepted by the delegates at the 2021 IIHF Semi-Annual Congress in three weeks, the next IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship would take place in August 2022 and the groups based on the 2021 IIHF Women’s World Ranking would look as follows:

Group A	Group B
USA (1)	Japan (6)
Canada (2)	Czech Republic (7)
Finland (3)	Germany (8)
ROC (4)	Hungary (9)
Switzerland (5)	Denmark (10)

In case of an approval, the venue of the event would also be determined by the 2021 IIHF Semi-Annual Congress.

2021 IIHF Women's World Ranking

Rank	Country	Points	Movement
1	USA	3260	0
2	Canada	3210	0
3	Finland	3100	0
4	Russia	2985	0
5	Switzerland	2955	0
6	Japan	2840	0
7	Czech Republic	2795	0
8	Germany	2740	0
9	Sweden	2640	0
10	Hungary	2560	+2
11	Denmark	2555	0
12	France	2535	-2
13	Norway	2425	0
14	Austria	2385	0
15	Slovakia	2305	0
16	Italy	2250	+1
17	Korea	2230	-1
18	Netherlands	2155	0
19	Poland	2070	+1
20	China	2045	-1
21	Kazakhstan	2000	0
22	Latvia	1955	0
23	Slovenia	1860	+1
24	Great Britain	1825	-1
25	Spain	1760	0
26	Mexico	1710	0
27	DPR Korea	1520	+1
28	Turkey	1485	-1
29	Australia	1435	0
30	Chinese Taipei	1400	0
31	Iceland	1325	0
32	New Zealand	1295	0
33	Croatia	1200	+2
34	Hong Kong, China	1155	-1
35	Romania	1095	-1
36	South Africa	1060	+1
37	Belgium	1040	-1
38	Ukraine	945	+1
39	Bulgaria	925	-1
40	Lithuania	610	0
41	Estonia	320	NEW
42	Bosnia & Herzegovina	300	NEW