World Cup of Hockey to return in February 2028

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.