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Greg Wishynski
multiple authors
Whether Russia and its collection of NHL stars will be invited to the 2028 World Cup of Hockey remains very uncertain.
“We’ll see how things develop. Time will tell,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Monday at GM meetings in Florida. “There is no immediate need or urgency to take this decision, so let’s see how things go.”
The World Cup of Hockey, a joint venture between the NHL and the NHLPA, will next take place in February 2028 with eight teams playing in three cities – Calgary, Edmonton and Prague.
Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been banned from international play in all age categories by the International Ice Hockey Federation. The IIHF cited safety concerns as the primary factor.
Russia’s participation in the World Cup of Hockey has been the source of fierce debate, with some arguing that a true “best-on-best” tournament should include the Russians.
Entering Monday’s games, three of the NHL’s top 20 scorers were of Russian origin: tampa bay lightning winger Nikita Kucherov, minnesota wild winger Kirill Kaprizov And Los Angeles Kings winger artemi panarin. Russia may also have the world’s best goalscoring trio in Tampa Andrei Vasilevsky, New York Islanders netminder Ilya Sorokin And Igor Shesterkin of New York Rangers.
That said, concerns over how to integrate Russian players into the NHL-led international event and opposition from countries like Finland were major reasons why the planned 2024 World Cup of Hockey was canceled in favor of the 4 Nations Face-Off, a four-team tournament held in February 2025 that would have provided the NHL with huge returns for a pair of USA vs. Canada games.
The NHL is not obligated to recognize the IIHF ban for its international events, but Bateman indicated that the league would follow “what the international community is doing in terms of athletics” in determining Russia’s status.
“I don’t think we need to weigh in differently,” Bateman said at a news conference during the Olympics.
IIHF President Luc Tardif has indicated that his organization will take its leadership from the International Olympic Committee. Neither Russia nor Belarus had a team at the recently concluded Winter Olympic hockey tournament in Milan.
Last December, the IOC advised international governing sports bodies to allow Russian and Belarusian youth teams and athletes to compete with their full identification of the national flag and anthem – a move many felt was the first step towards reintroducing the nations to international tournaments.
The IIHF has considered welcoming Russia and Belarus to under-18 competition in the 2027–28 season, with Tardif calling it a “first step.”
NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh said last year that he would love to see the league’s Russian players participate in a best-of-the-best tournament again.
Walsh said, “They’re incredible hockey players. The issues are political. It’s not political as far as the NHLPA is concerned; it’s world politics that we have to go through.” “I hope that as we get closer to the World Cup, we’ll start to see Russian athletes back in competition.”
This will be the fourth edition of the Hockey World Cup, having previously been held in 1996, 2004 and 2016, which was most recently won by Team Canada. The return of the World Cup is part of an aggressive expansion of the NHL’s international calendar. Bateman has stated that his goal is to alternate between NHL participation in the Olympic men’s hockey tournament and a World Cup every two years.
The 2028 World Cup of Hockey will feature eight teams, with two pools of four teams each with the top three advancing.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the intensity of competition at the World Cup could even exceed that of the Olympics.
“What you saw at the Olympics is indicative of what you’ll see at the World Cup of Hockey,” Daly said. “These are the top teams in the world. [But] There are only eight of them here, not 12, so obviously the hockey got better as the Olympics went on. We’re going to be in a situation where hockey is really good right now.”
