World Cup of Hockey to be hosted by Calgary, Prague and Edmonton in 2028, NHL announces

MANALAPAN, Fla. — The NHL and NHLPA announced Monday that Calgary, Edmonton and Prague will host a 2028 World Cup of Hockey.

Eight countries will field teams in the event, with preliminary rounds taking place in Calgary’s new Scotia Place and Prague’s O2 Arena, and the semifinals and championship in Edmonton’s Rogers Place. Calgary and Prague will host seven games each: six round-robin games and one elimination game, in which the second and third seeds from each of two four-team pools face off for a spot in the semifinals.

The semifinals and final will be single elimination.

The tournament is expected to take place over 13 days in February and feature 17 games. The actual league shutdown is expected to be 17 days. The rinks will be NHL dimensions and games will be played with NHL rules and officials. That means at least the championship would feature a five-on-five overtime, unlike the gold-medal game at the recent Olympics.

Since the 4 Nations Face-Off in February 2025, the NHL and NHLPA have said that their vision is to have a regular rotation of best-on-best international tournaments every other year, starting with last month’s Olympics, where the United States beat Canada in overtime for its first men’s hockey gold medal since 1980.

“We think having an every two-year rhythm … will continue to grow the game,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said. “That’s something we’re focused on for the long-term.”

There won’t be gimmicky teams in this World Cup like the 2016 World Cup — where, to ensure all worthy players had a team, two of the eight teams included Team Europe (European NHLers not from the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia or Sweden) and Team North America (under-23-year-olds from the U.S. and Canada).

The NHL and NHLPA didn’t announce the participating nations for the 2028 World Cup. If the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland are invited, it would leave one final spot between Russia and Slovakia.

Russia remains suspended by the IIHF due to the war in Ukraine, but the NHL and NHLPA are not bound by that ban and the IIHF has no affiliation with this tournament. The NHL and NHLPA say they’re monitoring the situation and no decision has been made on whether Russian athletes will be able to participate in the World Cup.

“We’re going to see how things develop. Time will tell,” Bettman said. “There is no immediate need or urgency to make that decision, so let’s see how things play out.”
Unlike the Olympics, the NHL and NHLPA get to control everything, from access and revenue streams to content and broadcast rights.

“Not that we’re control freaks, but we get to control this event.”

The World Cup is not part of the current broadcast rights agreement in North America and Europe, and Bettman said the league and union plan to take the broadcast rights for the tournament to market immediately to start a bidding process.

“We think there will be robust interest, and hopefully robust bidding,” Bettman said.