IIHF World Junior Championship

Overview

The 2026 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Hockey Championship is coming to the State of Hockey. The 10-nation tournament features the best men’s players in the world under 20 years of age and the 29 games of the championship take place over 10 days.

The 2026 event marks the 50th anniversary of the IIHF World Junior Championship and Xcel Energy Center will serve as the competition venues.

The 2026 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship will mark just the seventh time the U.S. has hosted the event. The first-ever U.S. host site was in Minneapolis/St. Paul in 1982, followed by Anchorage, Alaska, in 1989; Boston in 1996; Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 2005; and Buffalo, New York, in both 2011 and 2018.

Team USA has medaled in six of the last eight IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships, the best stretch in the nation’s history. The U.S. has medaled twice on home soil, earning bronze in 2011 and 2018.

The IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship includes a laundry list of alumni who are currently starring in the NHL, including the likes of Auston Matthews, Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar, Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Jack Hughes, Nikita Kucherov, David Pastrnak, Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Jack Eichel, Elias Pettersson, Matthew Tkachuk, Victor Hedman, Thatcher Demko and Jeremy Swayman to name just a few.