Belarus, Cooperation, EU – CIS, Good for Business, Latvia

Running against the Riga/Minsk bid was a bid from Finland.

The 2021 Ice Hockey World Championships will take place from May 7 to 23.

Riga previously hosted the world championship in 2006, while Minsk held the championship recently - in 2014. Meanwhile, Finland co-hosted the Ice Hockey World Championships together with Sweden in 2012 and 2013.

It is planned that one of the two groups will be played in Riga, and the other in Minsk. The final, bronze medal match, as well as semifinals will be played in Minsk, while Riga will host two out of the four quarterfinal matches.

The matches in Riga would be played at Arena Riga, while the matches in Minsk would be played at Minsk Arena.

Riga also applied for hosting the world championship also in 2014, 2017 (together with Copenhagen) and 2018.

The 2018 tournament will be played in Denmark, the 2019 tournament will be played in Slovakia, and the 2020 tournament will be played in Switzerland.

Riga hosted the World Ice-Hockey Championship in 2006, and the Latvian team finished in tenth in the competition. The Latvian team also finished in tenth place at this year's Ice Hockey World Championships in Germany.