The World Cup with Hockey, held in changing Olympic cycles

Montreal -Hockey -World Championship returns from February 2028, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced on Wednesday at a joint news conference with NHLPA CEO Marty Walsh.

Both sides reiterated that they are required to send NHL players to the Winter Olympics in 2026 in Milan, which means Hockey will return to a cadence of the best-on-best international competition every two years-with bettman, Calling this month’s 4 nations, USA, Canada, Finland and Sweden “A Sampler.”

NHL players have not competed in an Olympic Games since 2014. The last World Cup of Hockey was in 2016. Since then, many of the league’s top stars, including Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews, have the opportunity to represent their countries in prime of their careers.

“We couldn’t be more excited to make a reality: Olympics, World Cups, Olympics, World Cups on a regular schedule for the best hockey players in the world representing their countries,” Bettman said. “We know that the full blown World Cup will be sensational.”

Bettman said the league will soon begin to accept bids at hosts for the World Cup in Hockey 2028 and opened the door for European cities to place seats.

The format of the tournament has not yet been determined, but Bettman expects at least eight teams. Unlike the World Cup in 2016, there will be no “melted team” like Team Europe or a U-23 team North America, but rather each team will consist of players from a country.

IIHF is not involved in the tournament, Bettman confirmed, which means it will be an NHL-player-only event and federations cannot press players competing in European leagues.

The biggest remaining question is whether Russia will be able to field a team. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the country has been banned from international games in all age categories of IIHF. Earlier this month, the NHL and IIHF expanded this ban through 2025-26 with reference to security concerns.

The NHL made a similar decision for 4 National-Face-off, excluding a Russia team that wanted field some of the league’s top stars such as Alex Ovechkin, Nikita Kucherov, Kirill Kaprizov, Artemi Panarin, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Igor Shesterkin.

Walsh said Russian players have told him they are passionate about returning to the world scene. He also said he has not heard of other players who said they would not attend an event if Russia was involved.

“I would very much like to see our Russian players playing in these tournaments. Again, they are incredible hockey players,” Walsh said. “The questions are political, and it is not politically as far as the NHLPA, it is world politics that we have to get through, and I hope that as we get closer to the Olympics start to see the Russian athletes back in the competition.”

NHL -Vice Commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN earlier this season that NHL’s question about the question of Russia often follows the NHL and remains in accordance with other international governing bodies. When asked what it would take for Russia to get involved in future events, Daly said, “I think the current status quo should change and that should change in a material way.”

The joint World Cup with Hockey Notice was yet another brand for an improved relationship between the NHL and the NHLPA, which will soon begin formal negotiations for a new collective negotiation agreement.

The current CBA expires in September 2026, but Bettman said he remains “more than optimistic”, that there are no major problems to smooth and that a new deal could be announced as soon as this summer.

“All international competition, as we do with NHL players, is a joint collaboration and partnership with the Players Association,” Bettman said. “We now have a partner as Marty has been in the Players Association, which has put us in a position together to perform these types of events, make these decisions in the long term. It has not always been the case.”