This paper presents a novel parametric channel estimation scheme for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. In this scheme, two channel parameters, the number of channel paths and the multipath time delays, are estimated using the Hannan-Quinn (HQ) criterion and some simple operations; then the channel coefficients are estimated by utilizing these estimated channel parameters. Through complexity analysis and computer simulation, it is shown that our proposed scheme not only has better performance than the classical Yangpsilas scheme, but also has lower complexity. Additionally, two metrics, the mean square error (MSE) and the channel parameter error probability (CPEP), are analyzed. The MSE analysis gives the theoretical lower bound of the MSE that our scheme can attain, and the CPEP characterizes the rate with which our scheme estimates successfully the channel parameters.