The schedule for the NHL’s mid-season 2025 tournament, the Four Nations Face-Off, was announced today prior to the start of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final, with Boston, United States and Montréal, Canada set to host their respective host nations, along with Sweden and Finland, next February, a tune-up to the NHL’s Olympic return at the 2026 Olympics.

The inaugural tournament will kick off in Montréal at Centre Bell, home of the Canadiens, with four games over four days, including the marquee rivalry match-ups of Finland versus Sweden and Canada versus the United States on 15 February. The tournament will then shift to TD Garden in Boston, home of the Bruins, for the final day of tournament play on 17 February, before hosting the one-game final three days later. Set up as a round robin, the top two ranked teams will meet in the final on 20 February.

The Face-Off will mark the first tournament of best-on-best since the World Cup in 2016, and the first best-on-best with fully stocked Canadian and American rosters since the 2014 Sochi Olympics. This will mark the second international tournament held at Centre Bell, following the 1996 World Cup Of Hockey, and the seventh hosted in Montréal, after participating as a host for all five Canada Cups between 1976 and 1991. The Face-Off will mark the first time Boston, an Original Six NHL city that has had a franchise for a century, has hosted an international senior men’s hockey tournament.

The tournament, designed by the NHL as something of a “placeholder” in advance of a full World Cup of Hockey, tentatively set to return in 2028, has not been without its share of controversy, namely around the exclusion of nations like Czechia, Germany and Switzerland, all with a decent share of NHL stars, but unable to field full 23-man rosters of NHL players. The move has also been seen as the NHL’s way to avoid having to address the participation of Russian players, given the IIHF’s ongoing ban of Russia since they invaded Ukraine over two years ago.

The tournament schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, 12 February (@ Montréal)
🇨🇦 Canada vs. Sweden 🇸🇪

Thursday, 13 February (@ Montréal)
🇫🇮 Finland vs. United States 🇺🇸

Saturday, 15 February (@ Montréal)
🇫🇮 Finland vs. Sweden 🇸🇪
🇨🇦 Canada vs. United States 🇺🇸

Monday, 17 February (@ Boston)
🇨🇦 Canada vs. Finland 🇫🇮
🇸🇪 Sweden vs. United States 🇺🇸

Thursday, 20 February (@ Boston)
Final

There is only a 50% chance that the IHLC will make its way to Montréal by the time the tournament starts, as Czechia’s World Championship title last month has ensured that the IHLC will join the 2024-25 Euro Hockey Tour, meaning Sweden or Finland need to hold the IHLC by the end of February’s Beijer Hockey Games. If Czechia or Switzerland leave Sweden on 09 February with the IHLC, just three days before the Face-Off begins on the other side of the Atlantic, the title will miss this tournament altogether.

Photo Credit: Women’s Beanpot – IIHF – HHOF – IOC