The first date is important because it is the date used for age eligibility requirements and the second date in key as traditionally the final day of the U20. 

Although the Slovaks have nine players born in January, none are in the January 1-5 window. The only one this year is Juuso Ikonen. The Finn will celebrate his 20th birthday on January 3, but that won’t be enough to get him into the record books.

Indeed, the World Junior Championship is supposed to be a tournament for players under 20 years of age. But that age qualification is determined by players born 1st January 1995 or later for the 2015 World Juniors. As a result, players born between 1st and 5th January are 20 years old, but over the course of the 38 years of the tournament, there have been only a handful who have played at age 20.

But who is the oldest player ever to participate? And who is the oldest to score a goal? The answers to those questions are limited to just a few names in the case of the former and only one name in the latter.

There are exactly five players who were born on 1st January and played as late as possible – 5th January – making them 20 years and 4 days old. And unless the tournament dates change some time (unlikely given the success of the World Juniors) no player can ever eclipse this record. Equal it, yes. Break it, no.

Even more unique, two of those players tied the record as opponents in the same game. Miro Laitinen played for Finland and Marek Tomica played for the Czechs when the teams faced each other on 5th January 2001, in the gold-medal game. The Czechs won, 2-1, and Laitinen and Tomica joined the Class of Five for playing a U20 game at age 20 years, 4 days.