With the start of the 4 Nations Face-Off just hours away, it seems the NHL is already establishing plans to deepen its international footprint. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Executive Director Marty Walsh have plans to announce the 2028 World Cup of Hockey tournament that’d split games between North America and Europe, per Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. The World Cup will be a mid-season tournament scheduled over the usual All-Star Break, like the 4 Nations Face-Off. LeBrun adds that this news sets up international, best-on-best hockey every two years until 2036 – with hope for a timeline that includes the Winter Olympics in 2026, 2030, and 2034 and the World Cup in 2028, 2032, and 2036.
Perhaps more exciting is the return to the name ’World Cup,’ suggesting that more countries will be involved than the four represented at the 4 Nations tournament. This would inevitably require the involvement of professional leagues around the world, as neither Czechia nor Slovakia have enough NHL players to staff an NHL-exclusive roster.
The naming of a worldwide tournament will also lead to the eventual question of Russia’s involvement. The country has been expelled from international play since the 2021 World Championship, where they fell to Team Canada in the quarterfinals. The IIHF recently reviewed Russia and Belarus’ eligibility for international competition but chose to maintain the expulsion through the 2025-26 season due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Hall-of-Famer Pavel Bure was chosen to represent Russia in recent conversations with the IIHF and, citing concerns over player safety, shared that Russia would be willing to finance additional security if it meant allowing “fans across the planet to watch one of the world’s best teams in action again.”
The IIHF’s decision will only apply to events they sanction – that decision only applies to IIHF-sanctioned events, and both the NHL and International Olympic Committee will still need to make their own decisions on whether Russia should play in their events. The NHL moving towards potentially biannual meetings between national clubs sets up an inevitable, and potentially precarious decision on Russia’s eligibility.
As much as I like international tournaments, this seems like overkill.
Find a way to do these in the summer or just stop it.
Two concerns:
A) since the NHL already stretches the regular season into June, would a mid-summer hockey tournament mean viewer fatigue
B) since the players only get the summer months to rest/recharge/rehab would they be enthusiastic about losing “me” time to an expansive international tournament requiring travel?
Also, if you want Russians back in these tournaments, fine, but they have to play for Team Ukraine.
Oh, what’s that? They don’t want their lives or national pride hijacked for someone else’s glory?
Get in line.
So the players should be collateral damage for a decision made by Putin?
So, are you saying that people and their lives being collateral damage for a decision made by Putin is a bad thing?
The players have nothing to do with what’s going on in Ukraine. Why should they be punished? Might as well kick them all out of the NHL for now while we’re at it.
Murderous dictator robber barons have always used sportswashing as a means of repairing the inevitable hits their reputations take from murdering, robbing and dictating. That’s how/why Putin bribed his way into both the Winter Olympics in his favorite vacation town and the World Cup.
But, you know, now that we know what’s happening, we don’t have to keep going along with it, even if you think we should.
It is tragic.
After we worry about the people being bombed to death, frozen to death and starved to death in Ukraine, we should totally worry about those hockey players who are being prevented from playing slightly more hockey.
I’m not a big fan of these mid-season exhibition tournaments. There is just too much risk of players getting injured & all sorts of things that could affect their NHL team. The NHL seems a little too hooked on these “special events” rather than focusing on the regular season. Is the NHL trying to be a special event league rather than an actual sport’s league or something. These tournaments should be played during the summer not during the NHL season IMO.
Honestly I’m more interested in the trade deadline than the 4 Nations tournament.
Agreed. With all this time off, how many casual fans are just going to be ‘done’ for the season by the time it comes back (pitchers and catchers and all that)? Unless you have a team that you expect to ‘make a run’, do you simply lose interest? I know that I couldn’t care less about these in-season tournies outside of players from my team getting injured.
The players need a better union boss!!!!!!!
They’ve joined the AFL-CIO, so that should be a hoot.
I’m amazed that the announcers on SiriusXM NHL radio are a pair of show hosts. Were no professional broadcasters available?
A world cup is better than this 4 nations thing, but it should be played in late June, early July to allow guys some rest to get ready and recovered for the next season. I understand the Olympics are played at this time, but that can be an exception as opposed to the norm. And the NHL can still host an All-star event at that time to promote “their game”. Don’t need a common interruption of 10 days+ during the regular season. Especially for an event that some players will get up for and give a full effort for international pride when it could be done after the Stanley Cup or free agency commences and avoid affecting their clubs.
How are people gonna feel if a McDavid, MacKinnon, Hedman, Matthews, ect suffers a season ending injury at this 4 nation’s faceoff and could cost them a potential Cup run?
I’d prefer it to be in September. Players in the tournament can use it as their pre-season and at least if an injury did occur, a team would get them back at some point in the season. An injury now could potentially bleed into the playoffs (not good).
@gbear
I could agree with that. Either end of the offseason. But the preseason is where players build chemistry with their new teammates and learn new team systems. So it kind of depends on how you see the system. Do you want players to finish their year before ramping up with new players, or before their new year to treat as their personal ramp up.
Doing it now interrupts anything a team may have going and kind of stops their flow. 2 weeks-ish now is a bigger detriment than at some point in the offseason.
Maybe something that people are missing here is that the league has to try things like this in order to make hockey more compelling viewing for a wider audience. MLS has absolutely passed the NHL and while MLB was dying a slow death it has been reinvigorated by Ohtani and a number of other storylines. Meanwhile the average sports fan can’t tell you who McDavid is or who he plays for, and Bettman has overseen a number of market failures in the hunt for media dollars rather than building a strong product. I’m all for an idea like this that can help hockey capture fans imaginations around the world and make the NHL a more global product.
except it doesn’t do any of those things except piss off the core fans who hate the injury possibilities and would rather they tighten up the season so we aren’t dragging it out until mid-June. Get better national coverage of the games you already have.
Dude, MLB hasn’t been reinvigorated by Ohtani & such. MLB is barely staying alive, they have problems just filling the majority of their stadiums to a decent capacity. MLS is barely relevant of a league in the U.S. as only Messi playing for Miami has given it any boost & even that has faded. You can even go to the NBA whose ratings have declined a whopping 60% as WWE programming is out doing the NBA. Then there is the NFL which is even having problems with potential cheating scandals (which there is truth too) as they struggled to even get tickets sold for the Super Bowl. Believe it or not, NHL is doing well & growing just based on attendance sales, revenue streams, & viewership increase. The NHL is more popular now than ever before.
MLS has passed the NHL in what exactly?
Viewership? Revenue? Media coverage?
MLS hasn’t passed anyone in jack squat.
I can tell you a couple stars in almost any league… Except MLS. MLS has Messi on his retirement tour to collect some coin before he steps away from the sport, like Mr Sporty Spice did. Messi will do his contract with LA or NY (whomever its with) and maybe do one more international tournament with Argentina. I don’t follow NBA or like it, but can tell you Shae Gildeous is the MVP favorite, Luca Doncic is another favorite, LeBron will always have a spotlight. I can’t name one other player in MLS besides Messi. Don’t tell me MLS is more popular in N. America than NHL. NHL is still #4, and likely creeping up on NBA and in some places MLB these days.
@FTThunder,
oops, is Messi in Miami? I figured for sure he was in one of NY or LA. My bad. But at least I knew I was in that league.
Another thing that puzzles me about this 4 Nations tournament. If they’re using the international rules for the standings and OT, why not allow teams to dress 20 skaters on the roster too like in IIHF? This would help in cases like tonight with Theodore having to leave the game.
They had 20 skaters. 12fw, 6d, 2g. Isn’t that the norm at an international tournament game? It’s the norm in NHL. They then also had 3 in the box also as the normal procedure in an NHL or IIHF game. From what i can find a team is limited to 20 players on their “game sheet”. Which is the usual amount in an NHL game and an official IIHF game. This does not seem different from a usual game, nor the game last night vs Sweden. A game sheet can have 20 maximum skaters which includes all fw, d, and g. No limits on any position. Just the total amount of active players on their game sheet.
If a player is lost due to penalty or injury the team cannot add a player midgame they just have to tough it out. Seems to be the rule at all major events.
By 20 skaters I’m excluding goalies. International rules allow you to dress 13 forwards and 7 Dmen.
In this instance, do you really want, let’s say Makar or Werenski, to have to play 25 or more minutes in one of these games due to an early injury to their defense partner when international rules allow you to dress that extra Dman?
According to the IIHF rules teams are allowed to list 20 players on their “game sheet” and that includes goalies.
Goalies are not counted as skaters. Look at the box scores from any IIHF sanctioned tournament. 22 total players with goalies.
link to iihf.com
@Gbear is correct here. IIHF senior competition involves 22 players dressed (usually 13F/7D + 2G) with the third goalie on the roster as the lone scratch. 23-player roster in total.
Thank you. :)
In fact, the Red Army teams used to have four 5 man units, so they would dress 12F and 8D.
My bad. I did a quick Google and it said 20 on their game sheet. Thanks for the correction and correct info. Do the same rules apply for under 18’s and Jr’s? is that possibly why the Google AI told me 20 on a game sheet?
@ gbear, sorry for implying my wrong info. I did a quick Google and their AI stated 20 on a “game sheet”. As the GI Joe’s would tell you… “the more you know”.
Either way, this is a tournament I’m not all too interested in. 4 great hockey nations, but its lacking a lot of other great hockey nations. Seeing as how this isn’t a IIHF sanctioned event, but just a NHL event, Russia should have a team (even ahead of Finland), as should some of the other hockey rich nations for 2 weeks of NHL being delayed such as Czechia, Slovakia, Germany… Imagine a “best on best” not including Draisaitl, Kopitar, and Ovechkin and people actually considering it “best on best”. Draisaitl is likely the best player in the world right now, Ovechkin the best goal scorer currently and in history… But they’re excluded. Come on NHL, just do the stupid things for kids for a weekend, and host a true best-on-best in the offseason.
Also, please “National” sports leagues, stop with National anthems. Fair for international tournaments, but not necessary for and NHL or NBA game, ect when half if not more players are not of either of those nationalities.
Same rules for all IIHF events.
International hockey sucks! I also miss the old arena ice, 185 feet, By 85 feet.
“I believe I can boil down complex geopolitical situations into simple comic book Good/Evil archetypes like those I’ve seen in the Marvel movies I watch, which is the only art I consume. Try it! Just turn your brain off!” – half the posters in this thread