World Cup of Hockey to return in February 2028

MONTREAL -- The World Cup of Hockey will return in 2028, the NHL and NHL Players’ Association announced Wednesday.

The tournament, which will be held in February 2028 and is jointly organized by the NHL and the NHLPA, will be part of a calendar of international competition that includes the 4 Nations Face-Off, which began Wednesday, and the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics and 2030 French Alps Olympics.

Speaking before the opening game of the 4 Nations Face-Off between Canada and Sweden at Bell Centre in Montreal, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, NHL Players’ Association executive director Marty Walsh and NHLPA assistant executive director Ron Hainsey made the announcement during a joint press conference.

“We are moving forward with the World Cup two years after the Olympics in 2028,” Bettman said. “We will be asking for bids on hosting games. We will have a package that’s just about done that will be done in the next few weeks and we couldn’t be more excited about making a reality Olympics-World Cups-Olympics-World Cups on a regular schedule of the best hockey players in the world representing their countries and we know the full-blown World Cup, of which this (the 4 Nations Face-Off) is simply a sampler, is going to be sensational.”

The 4 Nations Face-Off, which will be played in Montreal and Boston, is the first international best-on-best tournament with NHL players since the World Cup of Hockey 2016 in Toronto. The NHL did not send players to the Winter Olympics in 2018 and 2022 but will send them to Italy next February. Having the 2028 World Cup sandwiched between the 2026 and 2030 Olympics would further extend the calendar of best-on-best hockey.

“One of the first things the players talked to me about when I took this role as the executive director is international best-on-best competition, and we've gotten to work with the League,” Walsh said. “We worked very closely together to be able to put 4 Nations together in a very short period of time. And already it's been a success, and I think moving forward it's just going to be exciting.

“People are excited about it here in Montreal. People are excited about it in Boston. The fans are going to get an incredible show, both that show up to the games and also on TV around the world.”

The 2028 tournament will mark the fourth World Cup of Hockey (1996, 2004 and 2016). Games are expected to be played in North America and Europe with at least eight teams competing.

Unlike the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, which included Team North America (a blend of 23-and-under players from the United States and Canada) and Team Europe (players from European countries other than Sweden, Finland, Czechia and Russia), the 2028 World Cup is expected to include only teams from individual countries.

“We have a myriad of decisions that we have to make, which is one of the reasons that the timeframe we had to put [the 4 Nations Face-Off] together, this was the best format that was in a position for us to execute in a first-class way in the time frame that we had,” Bettman said.

Whether players from Russia will be permitted to participate in the 2028 World Cup is to be determined. Russia and Belarus remain suspended from international competition by the International Ice Hockey Federation through the end of the 2025-26 season because of the continuing war between Russia and Ukraine.

Although the 2028 World Cup of Hockey will be run separately from the IIHF, the NHL and NHLPA will continue to monitor world events before a decision is made on Russian players’ participation.

“I'd love to see our Russian players playing in these tournaments again,” Walsh said. “They're incredible hockey players. The issues are political. Not political as far as the NHLPA; it's world politics we have to get through. I'm hoping that as we get closer to the Olympics, closer to the World Cup, we will start seeing Russian athletes back in the competition.”

“The international federation just voted to keep Russia out of many competitions, as have many other sports, and we're going to have to see what the International Olympic committee does,” Bettman said. “But we have enough time to deal with the realities with what the world situation looks like before then.”

The 2028 World Cup of Hockey will be played on NHL-sized rinks using NHL rules and officiated by NHL officials. Other competition details will be determined by the NHLPA and NHL in consultation with third parties, where appropriate, in the coming months.

“It’s great,” Sweden and Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson said. “Something that we’ve missed for a long period of time now. If we can get to a schedule where every second year there’s big tournament played, I think that’s ideal for everyone.”

The objective is to have an international best-on-best competition every two years after the 2030 Olympics as well.

"I think that’s the long-term goal here is that this just becomes over the long term where fans, players, everyone can look forward to these guys playing for their countries on a regular basis and honestly creating moments like Sid (Crosby) did in 2010 with the golden goal here in Canada (at Vancouver Olympics),” Hainsey said. “That’s really what we’re trying to do here over the long haul. And the players are extremely supportive of it.”

The NHL and NHLPA will continue work together following the completion of the 4 Nations Face-Off on additional details for the 2028 World Cup, including participating teams, tournament dates and times, broadcast information, training camp dates and locations, which will be announced later this year. Iconic imagery, stats and recaps from all three World Cups of Hockey (1994, 2004 and 2016) can be found in a new, one-stop shop for international tournament records on Records.NHL.com.

Bettman and Walsh said they also expect to begin formal negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement at some point following the 4 Nations Face-Off. The current agreement is set to expire in September of 2026.

“I know we told you we would start negotiations in February or thereabouts,” Bettman said. “We'll get started when Marty tells me we'll get started."

Each side would like to get a new agreement completed by the end of this season or soon after.

“We want to start this off on the right foot,” Walsh said. “We want to get going right away. And the commissioner has a, I wouldn't say an aggressive timeline, but would like to get it done sooner than later. I think we all would love to do that.”

NHL.com Editor-in-Chief Bill Price contributed to this report.