It’s official. Calgary and Edmonton have been chosen, along with Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, as the host cities for the 2028 World Cup of Hockey.
The NHL made the announcement on Monday in a social media post featuring messages from NHL superstars Cale Makar, who was born in Calgary, along with Edmonton Oilers’ captain Connor McDavid and David Pastrnak, who is from the Czech Republic and plays for the Boston Bruins.
“I’m excited to announce that the 2028 World Cup of Hockey is coming to my very own hometown, Calgary, Alberta,” said Makar in a message posted on the social media platform X.
The event, featuring eight of the top hockey nations in the world in a best-on-best tournament, will take place in February 2028.
Calgary and Prague will host the round-robin games, while the semi-finals and finals will be played at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that the semifinals and finals of the 2028 World Cup of Hockey will take place in Edmonton, Alberta,” said McDavid in the social media post.
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The tournament made its debut in 1996 and was last played in 2016 in Toronto.
The announcement of the World Cup’s return comes after NHL players competed at the Winter Olympics last month for the first time since 2014.
It was also made two weeks after NHL commissioner Gary Bettman visited Calgary to tour the construction site of Scotia Place, which is part of Calgary’s new $1.2 billion events centre development, that will serve as the new home for the NHL’s Calgary Flames.
During his visit to the city, Bettman described the joint bid by Calgary and Edmonton as “a good bid” that “people could be very proud of.”
Scotia Place is scheduled to be completed in fall 2027 and is expected to seat about 18,400 people.
Rogers Place, in Edmonton, has a capacity of 18,347 for hockey. It opened in 2016 at a cost of $613.7 million.
More details about the event are expected to be released at a news conference in Edmonton on Monday afternoon.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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