In the midst of media reports suggesting Hungary will bid for the rights to the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, the nation has won the rights to host division 1 of the 2018 Ice Hockey World Championship.
The decision was announced on Friday at the congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), and the event will take place at the 9,000-seat László Papp Budapest Sports Arena in Hungary on April 22-28, 2018.
Division 1 will include: Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Poland, and Great Britain, where the top two teams will qualify for the 2019 IIHF World Championship in Bratislava and Košice, Slovakia.
Hungary is no stranger to hosting big events like this. It has previously hosted the IIHF World Championship Division I events in 2011 and 2013 and Olympic pre-qualification groups for Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018.