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The 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship will be held in the Hockey State. This was confirmed by multiple NHL and international hockey officials. The Athletic Minnesota will host the tournament in two years.
The announcement is expected on Friday.
Members of the Minnesota organizing committee were in attendance this week at the tournament in Gothenburg, Sweden. Before Friday’s gold medal game, the U.S. will play Finland and Sweden will play the Czech Republic in Thursday’s semifinals.
The 2026 game will be held at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, which hosts home games for the Minnesota Wild, and 3M Arena in Mariucci, which hosts games for the University of Minnesota men’s hockey team.
This is a huge win for Minnesota Sports & Events, Visit St. Paul, the Wild and the University of Minnesota. Hockey lovers in Minnesota, especially the Twin Cities, have long wanted one of the sport’s most popular tournaments to return to the hockey state.
The only other time the Twin Cities hosted a tournament was in 1982, along with Rochester, Minn., and in 2005, when Grand Forks, N.D., was the primary host, some games were played in Thief River Falls, Minn. It was held in
There will be even more pressure on Minnesota going into this tournament, considering the last time the World Juniors were held in the United States was in Buffalo in 2018, which was not a success in terms of attendance. Seattle is believed to make her another finalist for the 2026 tournament.
The U.S. is also planning to host a men’s U18 team in 2025, but the host city has not yet been decided.
(Xcel Energy Center photo: Bailey Hillesheim / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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