The 1953 Men's Ice Hockey World Championships were held between March 7 and March 15, 1953 in Basel and Zurich, Switzerland. The Ice Hockey World Championship is an annual event organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation. ... Basel (British English traditionally: Basle and more recently Basel , German: Basel , French: Bâle , Italian: Basilea ) is Switzerlands third most populous city (166,563 inhabitants (2004); 690,000 inhabitants in the conurbation stretching across the immediate cantonal and national boundaries made Basel Switzerlands second-largest urban area as... Location within Switzerland   Zürich[?] (German pronunciation IPA: ; usually spelled Zurich in English) is the largest city in Switzerland (population: 366,145 in 2004; population of urban area: 1,091,732) and capital of the canton of Zürich. ...

This was the first world championship tournament with only European teams.

Standings

Games

March 7 B - Czechoslovakia 11 - 2 West Germany
March 7 Z - Sweden 9 - 2 Switzerland

March 8 B - Czechoslovakia 9 - 4 Switzerland
March 8 Z - Sweden 8 - 6 West Germany

March 10 B - Sweden 5 - 3 Czechoslovakia
March 10 Z - Switzerland 3 - 2 West Germany

March 12 B - Sweden 9 - 1 Switzerland
March 12 Z - Czechoslovakia 9 - 4 West Germany

March 13 B - Czechoslovakia - Switzerland cancelled
March 13 Z - Sweden 12 - 2 West Germany

March 15 B - West Germany 7 - 3 Switzerland
March 15 Z - Sweden - Czechoslovakia cancelled

NOTE: B = Basel, Z = Zurich

Trivia

Czechoslovakia withdrew from the tournament when it became obvious that their President, Klement Gottwald, was going to die from pneumonia he contracted at Stalin's funernal. General Frantisek Janda, the Chairman of the State Committee for the Physical Education and Sport ordered the team home, and Gottwald died the next day, March 14, 1953. The team was disqualified, their results annulled and their remaining games cancelled. Klement Gottwald (November 23, 1896, Dědice (Vyškov), South Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now Czechia) - March 14, 1953) was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician, longtime leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ or CPCz or CPC), prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia. ...

On January 12, 1953, Canadian Amateur Hockey Association president W.B. George stated Canada would not be sending a team to the 1953 World Championships. George told the press: "Every year we spend $10,000 to send a Canadian hockey team to Europe to play 40 exhibition games. All these games are played to packed houses that only enrich European hockey coffers. In return we are subjected to constant, unnecessary abuse over our Canadian style of play." The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association was the governing body for amateur hockey in Canada between 1914 and 1994 before merging with Hockey Canada. ...