What: Ice Hockey World Championship opener.
Where: BCF Arena, Fribourg.
When: Friday at 4:20 p.m.
TV/Radio: Viaplay, Radio Sporten.
Opening meeting with the tournament favorite: Canada enters the World Championship as the gold favorite with a star-studded team; Sidney Crosby accepted the invitation recently. Sweden lost to Crosby and Canada at last year's home World Championship but ultimately took bronze. Canada were knocked out in the quarterfinals by Denmark and have not won the title since the 2023 World Championship. At the Olympics, Canada lost the final to the USA in overtime.
World Championship gold heroes in big roles: Viggo Björck and Ivar Stenberg, World Championship gold heroes last winter, will take their places on the first line with Detroit star forward Lucas Raymond. National captain Sam Hallam plans to register two goalkeepers, six defenders and eleven or twelve forwards in the opener. The final World Championship squad, which does not have to be submitted until the last day of the tournament, may contain 25 players, including three goalkeepers.
Canada
Goalkeepers: 33 Cam Talbot, 72 Jack Ivankovic, 73 Jet Greaves.
Defenders: 2 Dylan DeMelo, 5 Denton Mateychuk, 6 Sam Dickinson, 22 Evan Bouchard, 25 Darnell Nurse, 28 Zach Whitecloud, 29 Parker Wotherspoon, 44 Morgan Rielly.
Forwards: 13 Gabriel Vilardi, 16 Connor Brown, 18 Robert Thomas, 19 Dawson Mercer, 24 Dylan Cozens, 55 Mark Scheifele, 58 Emmitt Finnie, 71 Macklin Celebrini, 81 Dylan Holloway, 87 Sidney Crosby, 90 Ryan O'Reilly, 91 John Tavares, 93 Fraser Minten, 94 Porter Martone.
Sweden
Goalkeepers: 45 Magnus Hellberg (40 Arvid Söderblom).
Defensive pairings (six defenders playing against Canada): 23 Oliver Ekman-Larsson, 34 Albert Johansson - 14 Mattias Ekholm, 4 Jacob Larsson - 72 Tim Heed, 26 Erik Brännström - 94 Joel Persson, 8 Robert Hägg.
Lines (eleven or twelve forwards playing against Canada): 13 Lucas Raymond, 61 Viggo Björck, 41 Ivar Stenberg - 20 André Petersson, 70 Oskar Sundqvist, 51 Emil Heineman - 74 Rasmus Asplund, 15 Jack Berglund or 16 Anton Frondell, 33 Jakob Silfverberg - 9 Linus Karlsson, 95 Jacob de la Rose, 10 Simon Holmström.
