Group 2

	Team	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goal difference	Points
1		5	4	1	0	27 - 12	9
2		5	2	2	1	23 - 15	6
3		5	2	2	1	14 - 12	6
4		5	2	1	2	20 - 26	5
5		5	1	2	2	06 - 11	4
6		5	0	0	5	12 - 26	0

Quarterfinals

Consolation Round 11-12 Place

Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 was relegated to Group B.

Semifinals

Match for third place

Final

World Championship Group B (Netherlands)

Played April 10-20 in Eindhoven. Latvia won at this level for the first time. In their final game, superb goaltending by Arturs Irbe

Arturs Irbe

Artūrs Irbe is a former Soviet and Latvian professional ice hockey goaltender. He has played in the National Hockey League for the San Jose Sharks, Dallas Stars, Vancouver Canucks, Carolina Hurricanes and Columbus Blue Jackets. He served as the goaltending coach for the Washington Capitals...

 kept them in it, and a late tying goal by Olegs Znaroks

Olegs Znaroks

Oļegs Znaroks is a Latvian former ice hockey player, with German citizenship since 2001. Currently he is the coach of UHC Dynamo of the KHL.-Playing career :...

 sealed the tournament victory. The final game had high drama for the host crowd, the Japanese and Danish teams among them. If the Netherlands were to lose to Poland, they would finish last and be relegated, a tie and Japan would be last, a win and Denmark would be last. A third period goal by Poland sealed Japan's fate.

	Team	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goal difference	Points	Tie breaker H2H Points
13		7	6	1	0	41 - 16	13
14		7	5	1	1	37 - 13	11
15		7	5	0	2	29 - 18	10
16		7	4	1	2	29 - 23	9
17		7	1	2	4	18 - 27	4
18		7	1	1	5	14 - 32	3	3
19		7	1	1	5	12 - 35	3	2
20		7	0	3	4	14 - 30	3	1

Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

 was promoted to Group A while Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 was relegated to Group C.

World Championship Group C (Slovenia)

Played March 22-31 in Jesenice

Jesenice

Jesenice is a town and a municipality in Slovenia, on the Slovene side of the Karavanke mountain range, bordering Austria to the north. It is known as the home of Slovenia's largest steel company, Acroni, and the hockey club it sponsors, Acroni Jesenice. The town name derives from the ash tree ,...

 and Kranj

Kranj

' is the third largest municipality and fourth largest city in Slovenia, with a population of 54,500 . It is located approximately 20 km north-west of Ljubljana...

. For the fourth year in row the Kazakhs and Ukrainians met in Group C. For the first time the Kazakhs came out on top, and it was the difference in winning the tournament.

	Team	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goal difference	Points
21		7	6	0	1	51 - 10	12
22		7	6	0	1	40 - 13	12
23		7	5	0	2	41 - 19	10
24		7	3	1	3	34 - 25	7
25		7	3	1	3	36 - 29	7
26		7	3	0	4	32 - 27	6
27		7	1	0	6	17 - 68	2
28		7	0	0	7	11 - 71	0

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

 was promoted to Group B while Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

 was relegated to Group D.

World Championship Group D (Lithuania)

Played in Kaunas

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

 and Elektrenai

Elektrenai

Elektrėnai is a city of about 14,000 inhabitants in Lithuania; since 2000 it is the capital of the Elektrėnai municipality. It is situated between the two largest cities in Lithuania – Vilnius and Kaunas.-Name:Elektrėnai is the Lithuanian name of the city...

 March 25-31. To narrow the field of the bottom tier to eight nations, two regional qualifying tournaments were used.

Group 1 (Australia)

Played November 5th and 6th 1995 in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

.

	Team	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goal difference	Points
1		2	2	0	0	12 - 02	4
2		2	0	0	2	02 - 12	0

Group 2 (Israel)

Played January 27-29, 1996 in Metulla. The greek team won both their games, but were found to have an ineligible roster, so both games were declared five to nothing forfeits.

	Team	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points difference	Points
1		2	2	0	0	24 - 00	4
2		2	1	0	1	05 - 19	2
3		2	0	0	2	00 - 10	0

Group 1

	Team	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goal difference	Points
1		3	3	0	0	14 - 05	6
2		3	1	1	1	15 - 06	3
3		3	1	1	1	15 - 10	3
4		3	0	0	3	08 - 31	0

Group 2

Ironically, the Israeli team that had qualified for the tournament because of the Greek forfeits, had to forfeit its first two games because they used two Russian players who did not have the proper clearance to play.

	Team	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goal difference	Points
1		3	3	0	0	19 - 02	6
2		3	2	0	1	10 - 13	4
3		3	1	0	2	07 - 06	2
4		3	0	0	3	00 - 15	0

Final Round 29-32 Place

	Team	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goal difference	Points
29		3	3	0	0	25 - 04	6
30		3	2	0	1	10 - 08	4
31		3	1	0	2	10 - 16	2
32		3	0	0	3	05 - 22	0

Host Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

won all five games to earn promotion to Group C.

Consolation Round 33-36 Place

	Team	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goal difference	Points
33		3	2	1	0	22 - 13	5
34		3	2	0	1	14 - 10	4
35		3	1	1	1	10 - 10	3
36		3	0	0	3	12 - 25	0

Medal table

1996 World Championships	Country
Gold
Silver
Bronze
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12