Today the International Ice Hockey Federation announced that hosting rights for the 2028 World Juniors have been awarded to Tampere and Turku, Finland, with the tournament set to begin on 26 December 2027.

Hosting will be split between Tampere’s Nokia Arena, which has hosted both the 2022 and 2023 World Championship finals, the latter co-hosting with Latvia in place of Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Turku’s Gatorade Center, which has hosted the World Championships in 1991, 1997 and 2003 (under its previous name, the Elysée Arena), and co-hosted the World Juniors in 1985 and 1990.

Finland will host the World Juniors for the seventh time, and for the first time not in Helsinki, as every previous tournament was at the very least co-hosted in the capital. This marks the tournament’s return for the first time since 2016, where Kasperi Kapanen’s overtime heroics won the Leijonat Gold on home ice for the second time, following Niklas Hagman’s own heroics in Helsinki in 1998. This will mark the tournament’s return to Europe for the first time since 2024 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Photo Credit: IIHF Worlds 2022 – IIHF – HHOF – IOC