With Russia's 2-1 victory over the Germany, they move onto the gold medal game Sunday
and leapfrog past Canada for first place in the IIHF World Ranking. via www.iihf.com

2011 World Championship Participating Countries

World Rank	Country	Points (Win Sunday/Lose Sunday)
1	Russia	4020 / 3980
2	Canada	3970
3	Sweden	3845 / 3825
4	Finland	3805
5	Czech Republic	3785 / 3745
6	USA	3650
7	Switzerland	3540
8	Slovakia	3405
9	Germany	3380 / 3360
10	Belarus	3360
11	Norway	3305
12	Latvia	3265
13	Denmark	3185
14	Austria	2935
15	France	2900
19	Slovenia	2730

Austria and Slovenia qualified for next year's World Championship by finishing first in their respective groups of this year's Division I tournament. The Division I tournament is for the twelve best nations that did not qualify for the World Championship. Italy and Kazakhstan, who both participated in the World Championship this year, will be relegated to Division I for 2011 after finishing with a bottom two placing in the standings.

 

Russia moved back into first place in the World Ranking after Canada had a brief three month stay atop the standings following their gold medal in the Olympics. USA falls to sixth after a disappointing 13th place showing in Germany this year. The Czech Republic will move up to fifth place as a result of the Americans' shocking finish.

Sweden slides up into third after winning in the quarterfinal round; they will finish ahead of Finland regardless of their result tomorrow against the German team. Germany will move up three spots to ninth as a reward for making it to the bronze medal game; they would have moved up an unheard of four places to eighth had they got by the Russians earlier today.

As a result, Belarus, Norway, and Latvia will each slide down one spot. Switzerland and Slovakia will also flop places in the standings, courtesy of a fifth place finish by the Swiss.

2011 World Championship Groupings

Group A (Bratislava)	Group B (Kosice)	Group C (Kosice)	Group D (Bratislava)
Russia (1)	Canada (2)	Sweden (3)	Finland (4)
Slovakia (8)	Switzerland (7)	USA (6)	Czech Republic (5)
Germany (9)	Belarus (10)	Norway (11)	Latvia (12)
Slovenia (19)	France (15)	Austria (14)	Denmark (13)

Come back Monday as we take a look at how the play of some countries this year affected which group they will be placed in next year in Slovakia.