Today is the first day of the 75th annual IIHF World Championship being held in Slovakia. As any other world championship, several countries scoop up their best players into a team and go at it for the title. This tournament is made up of 16 teams, broken down into 4 groups and play for a little over 2 weeks for hockey supremacy.

The World Hockey Championships conflict with the NHL Playoff schedule, so it isn’t very popular in North America, but Devils fans have a reason to take interest! Our own Travis Zajac is playing with an A for Canada and Ilya Kovalchuk is leading the Russian team.

A few other Devils are playing for their respective teams. Nick Palmieri and Mark Fayne are on Team USA. Anssi Salmela is playing for Finland, Patrik Elias on Czech Republic and Tedenby on Sweden.

Plus, the word is VERSUS will be covering a few games with Matt Loughlin as one of two rotating hosts and special guest analyst, Zach Parise.

If you’re missing the Devils in all the playoff action you can still get excited for our boys over in Slovakia. Check with VERSUS for up to date schedules, they’ve got a few TBD’s as of right now. First game up for them should be Saturday the 30th at 10AM when USA takes on Austria.

Photo Credit: Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger