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Sports
MPR News Staff

Twin Cities to host 2026 World Junior Hockey Championship

A hockey player celebrates a goal
Team USA's Ryan Leonard (right) celebrates a goal by teammate Jimmy Snuggerud (not shown) in front of Finland's goaltender Niklas Kokko on Thursday during the second period of a semifinal at the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Christinne Muschi | Canadian Press via AP

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USA Hockey confirmed Friday that the 2026 World Junior Hockey Championship will take place in the Twin Cities.

It’ll be the 50th anniversary of the elite tournament that draws the top 10 national teams for players under age 20.

The competition is set to begin Dec. 26, 2025, and wrap up 10 days later. It’ll include 29 games to be played at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul and at 3M Arena at Mariucci on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.

“It’s really an honor to be selected,” Wendy Blackshaw, president and CEO of Minnesota Sports and Events, said in a news release issued early Friday. “We’re excited about welcoming the world to the Twin Cities and to showcase the players in the event, many who will go on to star in the NHL. Our goal is very simple and that’s to stage the best World Juniors ever held in the United States.”

“We’re grateful to USA Hockey and the organizers from Minnesota,” Luc Tardif, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, said in the official announcement. “Minnesota is rich with hockey history and it will be a most appropriate setting to host the 50th anniversary of this great championship.”

Minnesota Sports and Events partnered with the Minnesota Wild, the University of Minnesota and the Xcel Energy Center in the bid to host the tournament.

The Rink Live reported that the other finalist to host the 2026 tournament was Seattle.

The 2024 tournament is currently underway in Sweden, with the host country set to face the United States for the title on Friday.

The last time the tournament was held in the United States was in 2018 in Buffalo, N.Y. It was played in Grand Forks and Thief River Falls in 2005, and the Twin Cities previously hosted the tourney back in 1982.