Canada, 26-times winners of an event that was first run in 1920, were initial favourites at 13/10, although that may have altered a little following their opening 5-4 defeat by the United States. Russia - 27 times winners if you count in the Soviet Union record - and defending champions Sweden were at 4/1.

Finland were 10/1, the US 11/1 and the Czech Republic were quoted at 14/1.

But if nobody is exactly sure who is going to win in Denmark, everybody seems sure who is going to lose: South Korea.

Making their first-ever appearance in the elite level of this Championship, the South Koreans have been given their odds for a victory - 1000/1. The nearest team to them in the betting, quoted at 750/1, are Austria - bronze medallists back in 1947 and up and down between elite and Division 1 levels like the proverbial fiddler's elbow in the last decade.

Putting aside for a moment the question of what hope South Korea's men have of staying in the big league, and what likelihood there is that they will become a latter-day Austria in the next few years, let us look first at how they have arrived here.

The South Korean men's ice hockey team first entered the IIHF World Championships in 1979, and for more than 20 years they proceeded consistently and unremarkably in the third tier of the event, Pool C.

For the next decade or so they yo-yoed between the second and third tier, before the nature of their challenge was transformed in the wake of the International Olympic Committee's award, in July 2011, of the 2018 Winter Olympics to Pyeongchang. Games on…

At the time the Winter Olympics were awarded to South Korea, it had only 1,880 registered ice hockey players, according to statistics kept by the IIHF. The US in the same period had more than 500,000.

Clearly there was much work to be done if the hosts were to maintain their face - or chemyeon, as the Koreans have it - when the world came to play on the ice of the Gangneung and Kwandong Hockey Centres.

The Korea Ice Hockey Association put into place a four-year, $20 million (£15million/€17million) plan to accelerate the development of its men's and women's national teams.

The recruiting in July 2014 of Seoul-born coach Jim Paek, the first Korean-born ice hockey player to play in the National Hockey league (NHL), and a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Pittsburgh Penguins, was a firm first step.

When Paek stepped in he was facing having to lift the national team to a world ranking of 18th or better in order to qualify for the Games. But two months after he arrived the IIHF announced that the policy was changed and the hosts were offered an automatic place.

Using his contacts, Paek began to recruit some talented North American players, seeking Korean connections where possible, while working to develop a programme within Korea.

Several Canadian or US players appearing on one of the three South Korea-based teams in the Asia League were signed up, some of whom were offered the chance to become naturalised Korean citizens.

Mike Testwuide, a 6ft 5in centre from Colorado, was one of the first to be approached during his second season with Anyang Halla of the Asia League.

"There's a lot of negativity out there," Testwuide told the New York Times last year. "In the US it was like, 'why would you want to play for another country?'" 

He added: "And in Korea it's like, 'why are we bringing you guys in?'"

The naturalisation process for players took roughly a month, and included memorising the Korean national anthem.

Paek's bold approach began to earn results. In 2015, his first full season in charge, the national team earned promotion to Division One A - just one tier down from the elite contenders.

And last year South Korea took the ultimate step-up on the IIHF ladder as they qualified for the elite level and a place in the current World Championships after finishing second behind Austria.

In the course of their matches, South Korea beat Poland 4-2, Kazakhstan 5-2, Hungary 3-1 and Ukraine 2-1, with only one defeat - 5-0 to Austria.

The challenge of the Pyeongchang Games was of a different order, however. South Korea's defenceman Donku Lee, who played with Testwuide at Anyang Halla, described it thus: "The other teams will be fighting with tanks and the Koreans will be using wooden sticks."

As things turned out, the wooden sticks were used pretty respectably in Pyeongchang.

The Koreans lost narrowly in their opening Group A match, going down 2-1 to the Czech Republic. Things got significantly worse as they lost their next match 8-0 to Switzerland before coming up against Canada in their third and final game, which they lost 4-0.

Testwuide did not make the roster for the current IIHF World Championships, but several of the Olympic players remain.

In goal, South Korea have 31-year-old Canadian Matt Dalton, currently playing for Anyang Halla.

There are three Canadian defencemen on the roster - Bryan Young, appearing in the Asia League for Daemyung Killer Whales, and compatriots Alex Plante and Eric Regan, who play with Dalton for Anyang Halla.

Up front they field two other Canadian Asia League players - 35-year-old Brock Radunske, the first North American player to sign for Anyang Halla, and Michael Swift - persuaded in 2011 by his cousin, Young, to come over and try his luck playing in South Korea, who turns out for High 1.

Swift, 29, is just 5ft 9in but powerful with it, and not averse to putting in a body-check. This has made him something of a novelty among Korean players, who are culturally uncomfortable with the idea of charging players who may be their elders. 

While the team will have gained vital experience at the Olympics, the bar is set higher at the Worlds given that NHL players, forbidden to take part in the Games, are largely able to take part in the Championships currently underway.

Defending champions Sweden, for instance, followed by swathes of home fans from just across the water, have been able to call upon 10 NHL players.

More than 300,000 tickets were sold before the Championships - being co-hosted by the Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning and Copenhagen's Royal Arena.

South Korea were drawn in Group B, which meant they faced matches against Canada, Finland, Germany, the US, Norway, and Latvia.

They will rely heavily in the course of the next week - their last group match will be against Norway on May 14 - on their experienced and highly competitive goaltender Dalton, whose total of 15 goals conceded in four games at the Pyeongchang Olympics was a respectable one.

Their three Canadian defencemen have proved consistent contributors to the team. Plante averaged 23min 22sec of ice time a game at the Olympics and Regan was at 22:51. Young was on for 21:11. It is likely to be part of Paek's plan to ensure one of these players is on the ice at all times.

The top South Korean national is Won Jun Kim, who averaged 21:19 per game in Pyeongchang.

Kisung Kim and Sangwook Kim are two other highly skilled Koreans to watch out for.

The clear problem for the Koreans, however, is that of scoring goals. They managed only three at the Olympics, one each from Radunske, Jin Hii Ahn and Minho Cho.

The speed and pace of the game at the top level is something the Koreans still have to prove they are able to handle.

Paek is going to need all his acknowledged skills as a motivator in Denmark.

Particularly after the torrid opening his men endured as they lost their first Group B match on Friday (May 4), going down 8-1 to Finland in Herning.

Sebastian Aho provided two goals and two assists in a match that appeared to have tipped in South Korea's favour early on when Sakari Manninen incurred a double minor for high sticking, offering the new boys an excellent chance to open the scoring in their first ever top-level World Championship appearance.

Instead, the man advantage yielded them anything but rewards as Finland defied the maths to take control of the match with two goals before seeing out an easy victory.

Aho got the first goal, at 3:41, when he took a breakaway pass from Teuvo Teravainen and beat Dalton with a low shot between the pads. Just 74 seconds later, Aho set up Teravainen for the second goal.

Aho made it 3-0 midway through the second and produced a great pass on the fourth goal at 12:21 for Veli-Matti Savinainen.

South Korea scored its historic first ever top-level World Championship goal thanks to two great plays from Canadian-born players. Radunske made a poke-check in the Korea end and Swift got the puck and skated unhindered up to the other end before firing home a shot between the goalie's pads at 13:00 to make it a 4-1 game.

Any hope of a comeback, though, was put to rest on a two-on-one, Janne Pesonen passing to Markus Nutivaara for the 5-1 goal.

Saku Maenalanen, Kasperi Kapanen and Janne Pesonen added goals in the third to add to the final Finnish tally.

"Welcome to the top division," Swift remarked with some irony afterwards. "We can't give up shorthanded goals and their power play goals. You are never going to win a game when you give up goals like that. Our power play needs to score and not get scored against."

Back home, the news wires were buzzing with the news of South Korea's sporting fortunes in foreign fields - not Denmark, but Sweden, where the North and South Korean women's table tennis teams had, unprecedentedly and unexpectedly, joined forces when due to meet each other in the quarter-finals of the World Team Championships at the Halmstad Arena.

With the blessing of the International Table Tennis Federation, two became one - and the one went on to win bronze.

Yonhap also featured baseball stories about the Toronto Blue Jays' South Korean player Oh Seung-hwan throwing his second straight perfect inning in relief and Los Angeles Dodgers’ South Korean starter Ryu Hyun-jin being ruled out for the first half of the season with a groin injury.

And there was further discomfiting news on the injury front as a fractured shin put participation in this year's FIFA World Cup finals in doubt for key South Korea defender Kim Min-jae.

"It's such a young hockey country," Dalton told the New York Times last year. "Anything they can put their hat on, they try to use it to further momentum. Like when we beat Japan once and people were like, 'we're better now'. 

"When I hear something like that, my first instinct is, 'guys, let's not get too high here.'"

There was little likelihood of anyone in the South Korean camp getting ahead of themselves given that their next match was against a Canada team transformed from the outfit they faced in Pyeongchang by the arrival of several key NHL performers.

Among the latter are Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of Edmonton Oilers and five New York Islanders players, most notably the 20-year-old "rock star" Matthew Barzal, who has just become only the ninth rookie in NHL history to record at least 20 goals and 60 assists in his debut season.

Inevitably the gap widened in the team's second meeting as Canada more than doubled their 4-0 scoreline in Pyeongchang, running out 10-0 winners.

What South Korea and Austria managed last year, Italy and Great Britain have done this year in earning impending promotion to the top division at next year's IIHF World Championships due to be hosted in Slovakia.

They will replace the teams who finish bottom of Group A and B. Currently filling the basement position after their opening game, South Korea now have the helpful information alongside them in the official table - "Relegation to 2019 Division 1 A".

For that to happen would be nothing more than what everyone expects. Already the Korean effort here is shaping up to be an extended exercise in damage limitation - or saving chemyeon.

The question remains - if they drop down, how long will it be before they come back up again?