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Feburary 12, 2009
OLY.001
After three rounds of qualification tournaments, including 24 nations, the final field is set for the 2010
Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. Germany, Latvia and Norway won their respective final qualification
tournaments – all on home ice – to book the three available spots.
When the men’s Olympic tournament begins in Vancouver on February 16, 2010, this is how the groups will
look:
Group A: Canada, United States, Switzerland, Norway
Group B: Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia
Group C: Sweden, Finland, Belarus, Germany
Qualification began back in October 2008 with the first pre-qualification tournament. This is how Germany,
Latvia and Norway ended up as the last three teams in the Olympic field (teams are listed according to IIHF
World Ranking, group winners in bold):
PRE-QUALIFICATION – OCTOBER 9-11, 2008
Group A (Ankara, Turkey): Bulgaria, Spain, Mexico, Turkey
OLYMPIC PRE-QUALIFICATION – NOVEMBER 6-9, 2008
Group B (Narva, Estonia): Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Estonia, Spain
Group C (Budapest, Hungary): Hungary, Lithuania, Croatia, Serbia
Group D (Sanok, Poland): Poland, Japan, Romania, Great Britain
FINAL OLYMPIC QUALIFCATION – FEBRUARY 5-8, 2009
Group E (Hanover, Germany): Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Japan
Group F (Riga, Latvia): Latvia, Italy, Ukraine, Hungary
Group G (Oslo, Norway): Norway, Denmark, France, Kazakhstan
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