Which cities should host the 2028 World Cup of Hockey?

The 2024-25 NHL season was one for the ages, with the 4 Nations Face-Off as one of the season's highlights.

Best-on-best international hockey was back for the first time in over a decade, delivering a tournament that should be remembered for a very long time. The stage is now set for NHL players to attend the upcoming 2026 and 2030 Winter Olympics, as well as the NHL's own 2028 and 2032 World Cup of Hockey.

But what cities will participate in these NHL-led, midseason tournaments?

The Fourth Peroid's David Pagnotta reported Friday afternoon that the NHL generally expects a total of eight countries to participate in the 2028 World Cup of Hockey and for the tournament to travel from one European city to one over here in North America.

Let's dive deeper into this new news and speculate on the 2028 World Cup of Hockey.

What city will host the World Cup of Hockey?

Pagnotta's tweet and the tournament website mention there are to be eight teams participating, with the tweet stating two (and maybe three) host cities.

In terms of the eight teams participating, I'd imagine it's Canada, USA, Sweden, Finland, Czechia, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Germany.

With the Russians banned from the 2026 Olympics, it's tough to see them allowed back by 2028, and as cool as it would be fun to see Team Europe or Team North America back once again, the odds of that happening are close to 0. (via NHL.com)

Regarding the host cities, if we dive deeper into Pagnotta's tweet, he states the tournament will have "preliminary games in 1 European city and one North American city, and 1 NA city to host the semis and the final." With that being said, here's how I would lay out the groups and host cities.

Group A (host: Vancouver): Canada, USA, Slovakia, Switzerland

Group B (host: Stockholm): Sweden, Finland, Czechia, Germany

Semis/Finals (host: New York City)

The group divisions are fairly straightforward, as long as the two groups are fairly evenly distributed, with Canada and USA playing in the North American host city, and all European teams playing in the European host city, most combinations of the eight teams should work.

Now for the host cities themselves, I went with Vancouver for Group A, Stockholm for Group B, and NYC for the semis and finals.

Any major Canadian and American city will do, as drawing crowds for games will not be an issue. For Group B, I chose Stockholm due to the local stadium, Avicii Arena, boasting 14,000 seats for attendance, and due to its proximity to other competing European countries, Finland, Germany, and Czechia, creating a central location for fans to watch their teams.

Helsinki would be a strong choice as well, (as would almost any hockey-crazed European city with a big arena), but I opted to go with Stockholm due to Finland hosting the 2028 World Juniors.

Last but not least, I went with NYC for the semis/finals. Again, most major North American cities would be a fine host, but with New York's proximity to Canada, as well as just being a city filled with hockey fans, it seems like a perfect spot for a tournament like this, especially if USA qualifies for the finals.

However, this is just purely speculation, we're still two and a half years away from this tournament, and lots can change.

Either way, hockey fans are more than happy the World Cup is back, and 2028 can't come soon enough.