Ostersund to be streamed live

“Ostersund 2015 is one of the highlights of the 2014-15 season, after interest in ice sledge hockey went off the charts at Sochi 2014.“

IPC Ice Sledge Hockey has announced that all games from the 2015 World Championships B-Pool in Ostersund, Sweden, between 15-21 March will be streamed live at sports.livearena.com/.

Ostersund 2015 will feature teams from South Korea, Great Britain, Slovakia, Poland the host nation Sweden and newly qualified Austria.

Craig Spence, the IPC’s Director of Media and Communications, said “Ostersund 2015 is one of the highlights of the 2014-15 season, after interest in ice sledge hockey went off the charts at Sochi 2014.

“The live coverage is part of a strategy to give fans more ice sledge hockey to watch in non-Games years, so that they can follow their teams towards PyeongChang 2018.

“These Championships, and that of the A-Pool in April, are crucial tournaments that will decide who is promoted and relegated between the two leagues for 2017.”

Hosts Sweden kick off their campaign against Poland, whilst pre-tournament favourites South Korea meet newcomers Austria.

All teams will be aware that a top two finish is crucial to their hopes of qualifying for the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games, as the gold and silver medallists will be automatically promoted to the A-Pool for 2017.

The last-place team will be relegated to a new C-Pool tournament, which will be created and run in the second and fourth years of each quadrennial, in 2016 and 2018.

In 2017, the top five finishers from the World Championships A-Pool will directly qualify for PyeongChang 2018. The bottom three teams from the A-Pool event and the top three teams from the B-Pool event will compete at the Qualification Tournament for PyeongChang 2018 that same year.

The top two or three finishers at the Qualification Tournament – depending on the status of the Paralympic host nation’s team – will move on to PyeongChang 2018.

Ostersund 2015 takes place just before the 2015 IPC Ice Sledge World Championships A-Pool in Buffalo, New York, USA, from 26 April – 3 May.

The B-Pool World Championships in Nagano, Japan, in 2013, drew six teams on the road to Sochi 2014, as the host nation lost to Germany 3-2 in the gold-medal game of the tournament.

Great Britain beat Estonia 3-2 in the bronze medal match.