Field hockey, Italy already looking ahead after promotion to Top Division
Thanks to a second-place finish in the Division 1A World Championship in Romania, Italy has gained promotion to the men’s Top Division of the annual national ice hockey competition. It was a hard-fought but well-deserved result, coming after three years of purgatory and two promotions missed by a whisker, one even in the 2024 tournament played in Bolzano.
The Blue Team coached by Jukka Jalonen, a technician whose palmarès includes an Olympic gold medal and three world championships at the helm of Finland, is now already projected toward the “big” tournament of 2026, which will be played in inland Switzerland, with one round in Zurich and another in Fribourg.
The Swiss national team and the newly promoted Great Britain and Italy are the only ones already certain of a place among the big boys, while the names of the other components of the two rounds will emerge from the 2025 World Cup to be played between Stockholm, Sweden, and Herning, Denmark. Sixteen participants, the worst two in the tournament (excluding Switzerland) will be relegated.
Italy won promotion despite defeats against Great Britain and, on penalties, against Ukraine. The latter’s unexpected knockout on the final day against Japan, however, reopened the doors of the Top Division to the Azzurri, who only needed to beat Romania in the 60′ regulation matches (7-1 the final result) to obtain the very valuable silver.
