{"id":466806,"date":"2026-02-22T13:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T13:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/466806\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T13:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T13:47:12","slug":"olympic-gold-game-with-usa-canada-boosts-2028-world-cup-of-hockey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/466806\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Gold Game With USA, Canada Boosts 2028 World Cup of Hockey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Winter Olympics<\/a> had many \u201cwinners\u201d\u2014the entire Italian team<\/a>, Norwegian cross-country robot Johannes H\u00f8sflot Kl\u00e6bo<\/a>, breakout American skater Alysa Liu<\/a>\u2014but the NHL<\/a> and NHLPA<\/a> should be high on any list.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe world\u2019s best hockey league sent its players back to the Games for the first time since 2014 and was rewarded with most North American fans\u2019 dream matchup: Canada and Team USA in the gold medal game.<\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps most valuably, the NHL and its union now have a second major data point on the growing global appeal, popularity and commercial value of \u201cbest-on-best\u201d international hockey. And that bodes well for the 2028 return of the World Cup of Hockey<\/a>, which they own.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s what every American and Canadian grows up watching, grows up caring about,\u201d Team USA forward Matthew Tkachuk told reporters after his team\u2019s semifinal win on Friday. \u201cThis is the pinnacle of the sport. This is as good as it gets.\u201c<\/p>\n

\n\tNBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation pay billions to televise the Winter Olympic. Sponsors like Visa and Samsung pay billions to sponsor them. Fans pay hefty prices for tickets. While the men\u2019s ice hockey tournament is a big piece of that global interest, the NHL doesn\u2019t share directly in any of those economics. Even promotional and marketing rights around the Games are a delicate balance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt hockey\u2019s World Cup, all of that will flip. Media rights to the 2028 tournament have not yet been sold\u2014it wasn\u2019t included in the league\u2019s deals with ESPN, Turner or Rogers\u2014and the value of those rights has probably jumped in the past year. As a comparison, the league\u2019s media partners struck new deals for last year\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off, Sportico reported last year<\/a>, with smaller packages also sold in a handful of European markets.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 4 Nations Face-Off during the NHL\u2019s 2025 All-Star break was the first real international competition for many of the sport\u2019s biggest stars, and it achieved a rare moment of virality for the sport in America. More than two dozen sponsors\u2014some existing NHL partners, others new to the league\u2014came in for the tournament, and five of the seven games sold out.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe commercial attractiveness of the World Cup, which is currently soliciting bids from potential host cites in North America and Europe, should be significantly higher.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNone of us anticipated the incredible success of the 4 Nations,\u201d NHL chief commercial officer Steve Mayer told Sportico before the Olympics. \u201cWe had to be very reactive. \u2026 But now we have a nice blueprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tThere were many reasons for the NHL\u2019s absences from the 2018 and 2022 Winter Games\u2014Sportico wrote about some<\/a> of them earlier this week. Simmering in the background was a constant question\u2014one still being considered even with the league\u2019s Milan presence\u2014about how participation in the Olympics impacts the owned-and-operated World Cup of Hockey. Players generally want to represent their countries as much as possible; the league has its own set of priorities. (A similar question hangs over MLB, which owns the World Baseball Classic and balances the sport\u2019s occasional inclusion in the Olympic program.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NHL and NHLPA debuted the World Cup of Hockey in 1996, replacing the Canada Cup, and held it again in 2004. From there it sat dormant until a 2016 revival. The league and its union couldn\u2019t reach<\/a> an agreement on a 2020 event, and the 2024 plans were scuttled<\/a> during to complications surrounding Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. Last February, commissioner Gary Bettman and union boss Marty Walsh announced<\/a> the 2028 return as part of a wider agreement to a more regular cadence of Olympics and World Cups alternating every two years.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpecifics of the 2028 World Cup haven\u2019t been announced. Ice hockey\u2019s global governing body, the IIHF, is not involved, which means it will likely consist only of NHL players. That likely raises a thorny question on the inclusion of a Russian team, currently banned by the IIHF but whose re-inclusion is supported<\/a> by a large amount of hockey fans. To fill more rosters\u2014and accommodate more stars\u2014the 2016 World Cup had a \u201cEurope\u201d team comprised of countries not otherwise included, and a \u201cNorth America\u201d team for players under 24 years old.<\/p>\n

\n\tMany players on that North America roster formed the backbone of the U.S. and Canada rosters at this year\u2019s Olympics, including Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>, Auston Matthews<\/a>, Jack Eichel and Dylan Larkin. For the next generation of NHL stars, representing their country will likely prove much more commonplace. The league and its union will benefit from it.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith assistance from Sara Germano.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Winter Olympics had many \u201cwinners\u201d\u2014the entire Italian team, Norwegian cross-country robot Johannes H\u00f8sflot Kl\u00e6bo, breakout American skater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[15232,532,5,517,4,3454,2602,768,6144],"class_list":{"0":"post-466806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-2026-olympics","9":"tag-auston-matthews","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-nhlpa","14":"tag-olympics","15":"tag-sidney-crosby","16":"tag-world-cup-of-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116114597608181777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}