IIHF, PWHL not aligned over 2026 women's hockey worlds scheduling
Women’s league doesn’t want long breaks for tournament and Olympics
The International Ice Hockey Federation has postponed announcing the host city of the 2026 women's world hockey championship.
The IIHF introduced running a women's championship in the same year as an Olympic Games in 2022, but the arrival of the Professional Women's Hockey League has made scheduling the 2026 world championship thorny.
The IIHF said in an email Monday the allocation of the 2026 women's championship was postponed until its semi-annual congress Oct. 3-4.
The 2022 championship was held Aug. 25 to Sept. 4. In Herning and Frederikshavn, Denmark, after February's Olympic Games in Beijing.
International Ice Hockey Federation women's committee chair Zsuzsanna Kolbenheyer said in April that March-early April for the women's championship is in the IIHF bylaws, and that Denmark's summer tournament was a one-off.
"That was only for that year," Kolbenheyer said then. "We always wanted to put it back to the original dates."
But the PWHL, entering its third season, does not want two long international breaks within weeks of each other. The Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy, run Feb. 6-22.
"We've had ongoing discussions with the IIHF," PWHL executive vice-president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford said Friday during a conference call about league expansion. "We do not have a date for that event, location for that event.
"We do know the Olympics are happening in February, but anything beyond that is not confirmed. So that's the information we have today, and we'll continue to work closely with the IIHF and various national federations."
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Canada will host the 2027 women's championship.
The PWHL's second season ran from Dec. 1, 2024 to May 26 when the Minnesota Frost defended the Walter Cup. Each team played 30 regular-season games.
The league will expand by two clubs next season in Vancouver and Seattle.
Kolbenheyer said during April's women's championship April 9-20 in Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic that a survey was issued to the women's hockey community seeking opinions on world championship dates "but we decided at the council level that it would be too late to do any changes" to 2026.
The international hockey calendar is crowded. It also includes the men's championship in May, the world under-20 men's championship in December-January, the women's under-18 championship in January and the men's under-18 championship in April.
The IIHF also holds multiple lower-level divisional tournaments in those categories that promote and relegate countries.
The NCAA's women's Frozen Four in mid-March also dictates the women's championship's timing.
The United States beat Canada 4-3 in overtime in this year's world championship final in the Czech Republic.
