A Battle for 2026 IIHF World Championships Emerging

Per Swiss outlet Sport.ch and according to Franz Raindl, Great Britain, Norway, and Kazakhstan have expressed interest in hosting the IIHF World Championships in 2026.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this year’s IIHF World Championships were canceled. Switzerland is now being considered as the front runner to host the 2026 tournament – unless they are capable of hosting in years prior.

It’s certain that although they would deserve to have another run at hosting – the competition still intends to be there when it’s time to apply for the tournament. Kazakhstan a country that has never hosted the tournament intends to apply for the right to hold the event. Great Britain that last hosted in 1950 also has an interest as well as Norway.

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The president of the Kazakh hockey federation has confirmed the intent in a conversation with the Russian outlet ”TASS”.

”We wanted to apply during this year’s congress but due to the current situation in the world, we will be doing it next year. We have two rinks that can seat 12,000 fans in Nur-Sultan and Almati.”

It’s important to note that if the 2026 World Championships will be hosted by Switzerland, Kazakhstan will apply for the tournament the year after.

Switzerland also hasn’t lost hope to host in 2023. Official contracts have been signed for 2021 (Belarus and Latvia) and 2022 (Finland) tournaments. After that Russia, Czech Republic, as well as the joint effort of Sweden and Denmark, should host in the following years.

Kazakhstan earned a promotion to the World Championship elite at home, while Great Britain beat France in the deciding game to stay amongst World’s sixteen best teams.