The Hockey Federation of Macedonia applicated for the 2016 IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship Qualification, this will be the fifth qualification for Macedonia's inline hockey national team. The qualification is for the spot in the 2017 IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship in Bratislava, Slovakia.
This will be the biggest event so far for Macedonia as beside the red-yellow team also 7 further teams applicated to take part: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Ireland, Latvia, Serbia and Turkey. In the past years only 3 or 4 teams played a qualification round in the european division. Now there will be a qualification tournament with two groups with each group of 4 teams, followed by a Playoff Round with placement games (the equal ranked teams of each group playing among them).
So far there are no details where and when the european qualification tournament will take part, but it must be played latest june 30th 2016. Four nations applicated to host the tournament: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Turkey.
Latvia and Austria relegated from past world championship and must be considered as the top favorites of the tournament. It will be the first facing for Macedonia with Austria and Belgium (if they will be drawn in the same group), as Macedonia has already played in past tournaments versus the other named nations. The highest defeat was versus Latvia in 2013, the closest versus Bulgaria last year in 2014. Macedonia is still waiting for the first win in a official IIHF inline hockey tournament.
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