The 1939 Ice Hockey World Championships were held between February 3 and February 12, 1939 in Zürich and Basel, Switzerland. The fourteen teams participating in the 1939 World Championship were initially divided into four preliminary groups: two groups of four and two groups of three. The top two teams in each group advanced to the second round. The eight teams in the second round played in two groups of four, with the top two from each group advancing to the third (final) round. The six teams not advancing to the second round played a consolation round in two groups of 3 teams with the winners of each group playing a one game play-off for 9th place. The four teams not advancing from the second round played a consolation round for placed 5 through 8.
Canada won its eleventh world championship title while the host, Switzerland, won its third European championship. Switzerland and Czechoslovakia both earned one point in the final round but Switzerland won a one-game playoff (and thus the European Championship) after the World Championships were completed.
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or ice:
“The world is for everyone.”
—Chinese proverb.
“When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my feet; that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain! The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)