THE 2023  IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship Division I Group A will kick off in Shenzhen on Sunday. Six national teams from China, Denmark, Norway, Slovakia, Austria and the Netherlands will compete in 15 games that end Aug. 26.

The tournament will be the highest-level international women’s ice hockey games ever held in China after the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Shenzhen Economic Daily reported yesterday.

It also will be the first time in the history of Chinese sports for a South China city to hold a top-level international ice hockey tournament.

Shenzhen Universiade Sports Center in Longgang District, the main venue of the tournament, will become the southernmost venue for the tournament at the A-level or higher in its 34 years of history.

Most players on the Chinese national team are from the Shenzhen Kunlun Red Star ice hockey club.

The Chinese team will compete against Slovakia on Sunday, Norway on Monday, Denmark on Wednesday, Austria on Thursday, and the Netherlands on Aug. 26.

According to the latest rules released by IIHF, the top two teams in the championship will be qualified for the top group, while the last team will be relegated to Group B.

If the Chinese team performs well, it will be expected to qualify for the top group games, laying a solid foundation for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan.

Tickets for the games are on sale, priced between 88 yuan (US$12) and 558 yuan, on the WeChat account “damaiwang01.”

In April 2022, the Chinese team won the championship in the Women’s Ice Hockey World Championship Group B in Poland, returning to Group A after a 12-year hiatus. Later in the same year, the Chinese Ice Hockey Association teamed up with Shenzhen to bid for hosting the 2023-2025 IIHF Women’s World Hockey Championship (Division I Group A). In September 2022, Shenzhen won the bid.

Over recent years, Shenzhen has hosted a number of world-class professional ice hockey events, including the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, Russian Women’s Hockey League, Kontinental Hockey League and the NHL China Games.

It is one of the cities in China that have hosted the most international high-level ice hockey events.

(Cheng Yixuan, Chen Siqi)