The two teams met in the final of the 2016 tournament in Moscow on Sunday (May 22) as the Canadians claimed a second straight title with a battling 2-0 win over the Scandinavian outfit.

Finland will now get an early shot at revenge as they will go up against Canada in the group phase of next year’s event, co-hosted in France and Germany.

The Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belarus, Norway, France and Slovenia will join the 2016 finalists in Group B, with matches scheduled to take place in Paris.

Russia, who hosted the 2016 edition and earned bronze on home ice, will play United States, who they beat 7-2 to finish in third place, as well as Sweden, Slovakia, Germany, Latvia, Denmark and Italy in Group A.

Matches in that particular pool will be held in the German city of Cologne.

The groups were drawn based on the IIHF world rankings, with slight amendments made to take into consideration special requirements of the co-hosts, according to the sport’s world governing body.

Cologne’s 18,500-seat Lanxess Arena is set to be the main venue for the tournament.

As well as hosting 34 group matches, it will then stage two quarter-finals, both semi-finals and all medal matches.

The AccorHotels Arena in Bercy, which has a capacity of 14,500, will be the French venue for the World Championships and will host group games and two quarter-finals.

The competition itself is due to begin on May 5 before concluding with the gold and bronze medal matches on May 21.

Organisers claim the two venues can be reached by high-speed train with a journey time of around three-and-a-half hours.

Packages for all games, all preliminary round matches and all medal contests have already been made available as part of a pre-sale ticket phase.

Day seats and team packages will then go on sale in the coming months, while single-game tickets will be available as of next spring at the earliest.

The exact game schedule will be announced in the near future.