In addition to the NHL announcing its participation in the Olympics in 2026 and 2030, the League also announced a Four Nations Face-Off between Canada, the U.S., Sweden, and Finland.
The idea behind it is to set up the World Cup of Hockey down the road. We know the political climate now, and it would have been hard to schedule a best-on-best World Cup of Hockey Tournament a year in advance, but what we get is a prelude to that scenario with the Four Nations Faceoff.
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Chris Johnston and Pierre LeBrun of TSN discussed what this event means for the International Hockey schedule moving forward.
** NHLRumors.com Transcription
Mark Masters: “The International schedule is suddenly getting quite busy. The Four Nations Face-Off coming next year. Chris, why are they doing this?”
Chris Johnston: ” Well, look, there’s a couple of challenges. I mean, first of all, it’s a short timeframe to organize an event of this nature. You’re talking a year from now. This thing is going to be happening over nine days in two cities. The other part of it is that the league is obviously comfortable stopping. It’s not going to have an All-Star Game next year. But the other European leagues aren’t going to stop.
If you take a country like Czechia or Slovakia, they can’t fill out a team with just NHL players. This is just an NHL event. And so I think finally that that helps you narrow in on the top four player-producing countries in the world: Canada, the US, Sweden, and Finland will be represented in this tournament. And you know, I think it’s the little appetizer I think for the full meal to come.”
World Cup of Hockey Needs To Be Best-on-Best
Pierre LeBrun: “It’s a great way to put it because really there’s such a bigger picture to all of this because what the NHL, NHLPA, they weren’t ready to formally announce this because there’s still work to be done, but they want the full World Cup of Hockey to be played every two years between the Olympics.
So they want a World Cup of Hockey in 2028. They want a World Cup of Hockey in 2032. And of course, the Olympics already announced for ’26 and ’30. Best-on-best every two years. I will tell you they’ve been dreaming of this scenario for about 30 years. Perhaps it’s finally here.”
Mark Masters: “Well, in terms of the Four Nations Face-Off, Chris, you mentioned two host cities. We don’t know those host cities, but we do know one will be in Canada, and one will be in the US.”
Regarding the host cities for the Four Nations Face-Off, the rumors are they will be in Montreal and Boston.