The host cities were Bratislava and Košice, as announced by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) on 15 May 2015 in Prague, Czech Republic.

[2] The Finns had 18 first-timers for the 2019 IIHF World Championship and were widely regarded as an outsider to win any medal at all.

[3] This tournament was also the first time since the 2006 IIHF World Championship that both promoted teams (Great Britain and Italy) stayed in the top division.

In December 2018, the IIHF announced changes to the overtime procedures beginning at this tournament: all overtime periods would be 3-on-3 regardless of round (rather than progressing from 3-on-3 to 4-on-4 and 5-on-5 over the course of the tournament), and the gold medal game would no longer go to a shootout; play would continue in 20-minute periods of 3-on-3 until a winning goal would be scored.

The seeding is determined by following criteria in the order presented:[6] List shows the top skaters sorted by points, then goals.