The Croatian men's national ice hockey team is the Ice hockey team that represents Croatia at International Ice Hockey Federation events. Less than a year after declaring independence from Yugoslavia, Croatia was admitted into the IIHF on May 6th, 1992. Croatia would make their international debut in 1993 when they participated in the 1993 Men's Ice Hockey World Championships, handily losing both of their games to fellow Yugoslavian breakaway state, Slovenia.
The highest division Croatia has ever reached is Division I B, which they have been in on numerous occasions, including for five straight years from 2014 to 2018. Croatia's best ever finish at the Ice Hockey World Championships was a second place finish in Division I B of the 2014 tournament (24th overall) where they missed out on promotion to Division I A by just two points as Poland finished one point ahead and had beat Croatia earlier in the tournament, giving them the tiebreaker.
Arenas Croatia has played in several arenas since they joined the IIHF in 1992. In the years they hosted IIHF World Championship events between 2003 and 2016, games took place at the Dom Sportova in Zagreb. In 2022, Croatia hosted Division II A of the World Championship with games being played at Klizalište Velesajam.
Croatia has also hosted Olympic Games qualifiers on two occasions. Group K of Preliminary qualification for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi were hosted at the Dom Sportova. Croatia again hosted Olympic qualifiers in December of 2019 for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, these games were hosted at Ledena dvorana Zibel in Sisak.
Olympic Games
Croatia has yet to qualify for the Olympics.
World Championship record Year Division Position Tier 1939–1992 as part of Slovenia 1993 3 Group C – 2 0 0 2 Spain 1994 4 Group C2 31 4 7 4 0 3 South Africa 1995 4 Group C2 30 1 7 6 1 0 Slovenia 1996 3 Group C 28 8 7 0 0 7 Andorra 1997 4 Group D 29 1 6 4 1 1 Hungary 1998 3 Group C 29 5 6 1 3 2 Netherlands 1999 3 Group C 29 5 5 2 1 2 China 2000 3 Group C 27 3 4 1 1 2 Slovenia 2001 2 Div I 24 5 1 3 1 Netherlands 2002 2 Div I 26 5 1 0 4 Croatia 2003 2 Div I 27 5 1 4 0 Spain 2004 3 Div II 32 5 4 1 0 Croatia 2005 3 Div II 29 5 5 0 0 Estonia 2006 2 Div I 27 5 0 0 5 Croatia 2007 3 Div II 29 5 5 0 0 Japan 2008 2 Div I 25 5 1 0 4 Lithuania 2009 2 Div I 26 5 1 0 4 Slovenia 2010 2 Div I 28 5 0 0 5 Croatia 2011 3 Div II 31 5 4 0 1 Iceland 2012 4 Div II A 31 3 5 3 0 2 Croatia 2013 4 Div II A 29 1 5 5 0 0 Lithuania 2014 3 Div I B 24 2 5 4 0 1 Netherlands 2015 3 Div I B 26 4 5 2 0 3 Croatia 2016 3 Div I B 26 4 5 3 0 2 Great Britain 2017 3 Div I B 27 5 5 1 0 4 Lithuania 2018 3 Div I B 28 6 5 1 0 4 Serbia 2019 4 Div II A 30 2 5 4 0 1 Croatia 2020 4 Div II A China 2021 4 Div II A Croatia 2022 4 Div II A 29 3 4 1 1 2 Spain 2023 4 Div II A 31 3 5 3 0 2Serbia 2024 4 Div II A 29 1 5 5 0 0Estonia 2025 3 Div I B 28 6 5 0 2 3UA Emirates 2026 4 Div II A Cancelled due to the 2026 Iran War
Division I before: Group B Gold Silver Bronze Total 0 1 0 1
Division II before: Group C, Group C1 Gold Silver Bronze Total 4 3 3 10
Division III before: Group D, Group C2 Gold Silver Bronze Total 2 0 0 2
All-time record against other nations .
Opponent Played Won Drawn Lost GF GA GD 11 10 0 1 45 22 +23 2 0 0 2 2 11 -9 3 0 0 3 3 20 -17 7 5 0 2 42 13 +29 7 6 0 1 72 16 +56 10 4 0 6 34 34 0 1 1 0 0 6 1 +5 3 0 0 3 4 24 -20 12 4 1 7 41 61 -20 4 0 0 4 3 29 -26 1 0 0 1 0 6 -6 9 1 0 8 13 42 -29 24 0 1 23 30 178 -148 5 5 0 0 37 6 +31 1 1 0 0 21 4 +17 5 0 0 5 1 24 -23 7 7 0 0 53 7 +46 6 0 0 6 6 30 +24 4 0 0 4 4 42 +38 16 3 1 12 33 58 -25 1 1 0 0 11 0 +11 1 1 0 0 9 2 +7 17 2 1 14 36 86 -50 3 3 0 0 42 11 +31 4 0 0 4 5 36 -31 5 0 0 5 4 33 -29 13 5 1 7 41 52 -11 20 13 2 5 67 42 +25 1 1 0 0 1 6 -5 18 0 0 18 18 141 -123 1 1 0 0 11 1 +10 10 5 1 4 31 33 -2 14 9 1 4 52 38 +14 6 6 0 0 114 7 +107 9 1 0 8 7 56 -49 1 1 0 0 4 1 +3Total 262 95 9 158 907 1 166 -259
Biggest Losses World Championship Qualifications -14 vs. Slovenia (1–15) 1993 -14 vs. Slovenia (1–15) 2001 -12 vs. Kazakhstan (0–12) 1996 -12 vs. Kazakhstan (0–12) 2002 -11 vs. Slovenia (2–13) 1996 -11 vs. Ukraine (1–11) 1996 -10 vs. Hungary (0–10) 1996 -10 vs. Hungary (3–13) 2000 -13 vs. Hungary (0–13) 2014 -7 vs. Hungary (0–7) 1998 -7 vs. Poland (0–7) 2006 -7 vs. Netherlands (3–10) 2006 -6 vs. Hungary (0–6) 1998 -6 vs. Netherlands (2–8) 2014 -6 vs. Ukraine (0–6) 2018
References
External links
IIHF profile National Teams of Ice Hockey