At a press conference during the 2024 NHL All-Star Weekend in Toronto, Canada, both NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and IIHF President Luc Tardif announced a number of international hockey developments, including the return of NHL players to the Winter Olympics and a new tournament to debut in February 2025.

The major announcement, which has been speculated on and hoped for by players and fans alike since the NHL was last at the Olympics in 2014, was that the league would return the world’s top players to the Games starting in February 2026 in Milan, Italy, with a return for players in 2030, whose host will be announced this summer. This ends a twelve-year delay in going to the Olympics, after the NHL opted out of the 2018 PyeongChang games over a myriad of reasons (including insurance, marketing and time-zone delays in North America), while the NHL pulled out of the 2022 Beijing games due to COVID-19 impacting the 2021-22 NHL schedule.

This will mark not only a return to the Games for the first time in a dozen years, but the first true best on best men’s international tournament in a decade, with the 2016 World Cup Of Hockey, despite having two non-national teams competing, serving as the last time the world could truly see top hockey nations face each other. Top stars like Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews or Nathan MacKinnon have yet to suit up for their countries in a best on best tournament, giving sports fans across the globe the chance to see some of these stars for the first time on the global stage.

Nine nations (Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland, Russia, Czechia, Germany, Switzerland and hosts Italy) have already qualified for the 2026 Games, with the final three spots to be decided in qualification tournaments being hosted in Slovakia, Latvia and Denmark this September; however, Russia’s status is in question, given their current invasion of Ukraine (and subsequent IIHF ban) on international competition, coming up on its two-year anniversary. Their fate for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris will be decided later this year, and will carry weight on the winter decision for Milan.

The Olympics, on a quadrennial schedule, are intended to be held every two years between the World Cup of Hockey, which is scheduled to resume in 2028 and 2032; with this in mind, the NHL announced a mini-tournament, the Four Nations Face-Off, which will be held in February 2025 between Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland, being hosted both in Boston, United States and Montréal, Canada. The tournament, set to replace the 2025 NHL All-Star Game, is seen as something of a stop-gap by the NHL to avoid facing the conundrum of allowing Russian NHLers to compete, whether under their flag or a neutral one.

The Four Nations Face-Off, intended to only be a one-time event before the World Cup returns, puts the spotlight on the four most represented countries in the NHL, but will mark the smallest best on best tournament since the 1932 Lake Placid Olympics, depriving not just Russia, but major hockey nations like Czechia, Germany and Slovakia the chance to compete, leaving many top NHL stars on the sidelines come February 2025.

While the 2025 tournament may provide little solace for international hockey fans, at least the upcoming Milan-Cortina games are now just over two years away, until the worlds best can officially face off once again!

Photo Credit: Inside The Games – IIHF – HHOF – IOC