There’s going to be a lot of international hockey in the coming years.
Ahead of the opening of the 4 Nations Face-Off in Montreal on Wednesday, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the league’s plans to have a best-on-best international tournament every second year.
The league will have the World Cup of Hockey in February of 2028, two years after the 2026 Winter Olympics are scheduled to be played in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. There’ll be another World Cup of Hockey in 2028, which will be followed a couple of years later by the 2030 Olympics in the French Alps.
This is welcomed news for fans of international hockey. There hasn’t been a true best-on-best international hockey tournament since the 2014 Olympics in Sochi as the NHL didn’t send players to Pyeongchang in 2018 because of insurance or Beijing in 2022 because of COVID-19 restrictions.
The NHL’s World Cup of Hockey in 2016 was close to a best-on-best, but the addition of Team Europe (a mix of players from countries who didn’t make the cut) and Team North America (a group of players who were under the age of 24 at the time) muddled the classic country-vs-country flavour of an international tournament.
What about in future World Cups? At least eight countries will be participating in 2028, per Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, and the NHL does not plan to have “melded” entries of teams comprised of players from multiple countries. The league still has a handful of decisions to make regarding the tournament, including whether they’ll use non-NHL players and whether Russia will be allowed to participate.
This is our tournament with our players,” Bettman said. “Our anticipation is we’ll be using country-by-country teams. And again, we have a myriad of decisions that we have to make, which is one of the reasons that in the timeframe we had to put this [4 Nations] tournament together, this was the best format that was in a position for us to execute it in a first-class way with the timeframe that we had.”
“I’ve been very clear in this,” NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh said. “The Russian players want to get back into best-on-best competition. They want to represent their country. They want to play in this tournament. They want to be part of the 4 Nations. They want to be part of the Olympics. They certainly would want to play in the World Cup tournament. I’d love to see our Russian players play in this tournament, they’re incredible hockey players. The issues are political. It’s not political as far as the NHLPA, it’s the world politics that we have to get through. I’m hoping that as we get closer to the Olympics, as we get closer to the World Cup, we will start seeing the Russian athletes back in competition.”
The hosts are set for the next two Olympic Games in 2026 and 2030 but that isn’t the case for the World Cup of Hockey in 2028 and 2032. Seravalli reported that the league is planning to send out packages soliciting bids from host cities in the next few weeks and that cities in Europe will be permitted to bid. He added that Edmonton and Calgary are a possibility to host the tournament together.
“Keep an eye on Stockholm, Helsinki and Prague – the usual suspects where the NHL hosts games and events in hockey-mad countries. But also don’t rule out buildings in London and Berlin that are owned or managed by NHL ownership groups.
As for North America, the hockey meccas of Toronto and Montréal stand out. However, there has been buzz recently about a New York / New Jersey bid, support in Minnesota and Chicago, as well as a potential Edmonton / Calgary play, with the Flames’ new Scotia Place slated to open in Oct. 2027.”
