Great Britain Inline get their World Championship Division 1 tournament under way this weekend in Slovakia.
GB, who are ranked 11th in the world, are in Group D with Australia (10), Latvia (14) and Brazil (15).
The preliminary round will be played in four groups (A to D) with four teams each. The groups A and B form the Top Division, the groups C and D form Division 1.
Playoffs starting with the quarter-finals and placement games will be played both in the Top Division and in Division 1.
The last-placed team of the Top Division (loser of the 7th-place game) will be relegated to Division 1 for 2017. The gold medal winner from Division 1 will be promoted to the Top Division in 2017. The three bottom-ranked teams of Division I will be relegated to the qualification tournament.
The seeding of the groups is based according to the result of the last World Championship performance of the respective countries in the IIHF InLine Hockey Program and the qualification rounds.
All games in the preliminary round and in the playoffs will be played with five-minute sudden-death overtime and a penalty shootout in case of a tie.
The final games will be played with a 12-minute sudden-death overtime, followed by a penalty shootout competition in case of a tie.
Teams will be awarded points on the following system:
Win after regular time = 3 points
Win after overtime or shootout = 2 points
Loss after overtime or shootout = 1 point
Loss after regular time = 0 points
TOP DIVISION
Group A: Canada (1), Slovakia (4), USA (5), Croatia (8).
Group B: Finland (2), Sweden (3), Czech Republic (6), Germany (7).
DIVISION 1
Group C: Slovenia (9), Argentina (12), Hungary (13), New Zealand (16).
Group D: Australia (10), Great Britain (11), Latvia (14), Brazil (15).