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Current season, competition or edition: 2022 FIRS World Inline Hockey Championships | |
| Sport | Roller in-line hockey |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1995 |
| No. of teams | 8 in Group 1 Open in Group 2 |
| Continent | International (WS) |
| Most recent champion(s) |  United States (men) United States (women) |
| Most titles | United States (men; 17 titles) United States(women; 11 titles) |
| Official website | worldskate.org |
The Inline Hockey World Championship is an annual inline hockey tournament organized by World Skate. Prior to the creation of World Skate in September 2017, the championship was administrated by the Comité International Roller In-Line Hockey (CIRILH), an organization and discipline of Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS). It is the sport's highest-profile annual international tournament.
The first men's World Championship was held was in 1995 and comprised twelve national teams. The structure established at the inaugural tournament featured all teams participating in a round-robin stage, followed by single elimination games to determine the champion. This basic format would be used until 2006, though the number of teams changed.
The modern format for the World Championship features eight teams in Group 1, and if there are more than eight teams, the rest compete in Group 2. All teams play a preliminary round, then the top six teams in Group 1 and top two teams in Group 2 play in the playoff medal round and the winning team is crowned World Champion. The remaining teams (bottom two in Group 1 and remaining teams in Group 2) play in a playoff round for the National Team World Cup, and the winning team is crowned World Cup champions. The World Championships are open to all players, both professional and amateur. The FIRS requires that players are citizens of the country they represent and allow players to switch national teams provided that they play in their new nation for a certain period of time.
The United States is the tournament's first dominant team, winning the tournament 14 of the 18 events held (as of 2012), as well as medaling in all but one tournament. The Czech Republic is the next most successful team, winning the tournament twice and winning 14 medals.
Due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, World Skate banned Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from its competitions, and will not stage any events in Russia or Belarus in 2022.[1]
- ^ [🖉"World Skate finally bans-russian- Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials". www.insidethegames.biz. 2 April 2022.