The IIHF committees have gathered in Zurich

Between the 7th and 9th of December in Zurich, Switzerland, the IIHF committees all gathered to discuss current issues. They discussed the main goals concerning international tournaments up until 2020. The Russian Ice Hockey Federation were represented by president Vladislav Tretyak, executive director Dmitry Kurbatov, marketing advisor to the first vice-president Olga Romanenko, head of the women's ice hockey department Olga Votolovskaya, Russian Olympic team head coach Oleg Bratash and head of the refereeing training centre Alexander Polyakov.

Competition committee

After 2019, World Championships will begin a week later between the 8th and 10th of May. After the 2022 Olympic Games in China, they will start on May 12th. The committee's opinion will now be forwarded on to the IIHF's board. The Russian Ice Hockey Federation voted for a day between the semi-finals and medal matches as to give teams a rest, however other participants did not agree. Nevertheless, there is still a chance the IIHF board will agree with the RIHF's idea. The under 18 World Championship will start later. This is down the CHL playoffs, as to make sure that all top players can take part.

TV, marketing and advertisement committee

This committee talked about these following notable ideas:

- Opportunity to create an IIHF fan site where World Championship information can be shown;

- The IIHF are looking at the idea of changing the size of the goals (egg shape of posts and crossbar) as to increase the attractiveness of the game. Also, breaks could be extended as to sell more food and drink.

Women's ice hockey committee

The women's committee's main decision was to increase the number of World Championship competitors from eight to ten in 2018. Also there will be a test European IIHF championship for under 16 teams. Russia offered to host the 2018 World Junior Women's Championship and the 2021 World Women's Championship.

Refereeing committee

Their goal is to hold more refereeing seminars in different countries. Unfortunately, Russian referee Konstantin Olenin will not travel to the 2017 World Junior Championship because of a sustained injury. In a joint meeting with the Asian committee, IIHF president Rene Fasel stated an idea about Finland, Russia, Sweden and the Czech Republic helping to develop ice hockey in the Asian region.

Russian Ice Hockey Federation