NHL eyes 2024 World Cup of Hockey play in Europe and North America
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The NHL is continuing to move forward with plans to hold the World Cup of Hockey in 2024 and hoping to play the tournament on two continents, deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed Wednesday.
"We're moving full steam ahead and that means we're continuing to have regular meetings," Daly said during the NHL's European Player Media Tour, per NHL.com.
"We still want to play one pool in Europe, a preliminary round pool in Europe and a preliminary round pool in North America and move the semifinals and the final to a different city in North America likely," added Daly, who said in March the tournament would return to having a traditional field made up of individual countries. "I think that short list would universally encompass more traditional hockey markets."
The tournament was last held in 2016 and, for the first time, had a team North America, made up of Canadian and American players under the age of 23, and a Team Europe with players from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Switzerland.
Daly noted the status of Russia, currently banned from IIHF events, is uncertain for the tournament which would likely be held in February 2024. He noted two teams could be added to create a field of 10 teams, with a qualification round to drop back to eight nations.
"I think longer term, that's our plan to have a qualification tournament at another time during the calendar," Daly said. "Given the short timeframe we have between now and February 2024, if we have a qualification stage, I think it's part of the tournament."
Team Canada defeated Team Europe 2-0 in a best-of-three series to claim the title in 2016. The tournament was the last time many NHL stars represented their countries as the league elected not send players to 2018 and 2022 Olympics.
There have been three previous World Cup of Hockey tournaments, with Toronto playing host in 2016 and 2004, and Montreal and Philadelphia sharing hosting duties in 1996. Canada won each of the previous two events, while the United States won the debut tournament in 1996.