The Twin Cities are getting set to welcome the world for the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship, but fans will have a chance to get an appetizer much sooner. USA Hockey announced that the World Junior Summer Showcase, which is used by USA, Canada, Sweden and Finland to help prepare for the holiday tournament, will be coming to the campus of the University of Minnesota and Ridder Arena in July.
There will be 11 games held as part of the evaluation process for each country, with some of the very best U20 players in world participating including a number of highly-projected NHL prospects. The camp begins on July 25 with games starting July 27.
The World Junior Summer Showcase has traditionally been held at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Michigan, but has occasionally hit the road to other locales including Kamloops, B.C. Its predecessor, the National Junior Evaluation Camp, was held in Lake Placid, N.Y., at the site of the Miracle on Ice. This is the first time the event will head to Minnesota, which has previously hosted pre-tournament camps for Team USA in years past just before the team departed for the World Juniors.
While the World Juniors is one of the greatest collection of prospects in any tournament, the World Junior Summer Showcase usually has more draft picks competing for all four countries and is a highly-regarded event to kick off the scouting season.
USA is the two-time defending World Junior Champion as they set to play host to the tournament for the first time since 2018 in Buffalo. They will play their games in the tournament at Xcel Energy Center, while Canada will be competing at 3M Arena At Marriucci in Minneapolis during the tournament.
Team USA could have as many as nine returning players from last year’s gold medal team led by 2025 NHL Draft top prospect James Hagens, native Minnesotans Logan Hensler (2025), Brodie Ziemer (BUF), Max Plante (DET) and Adam Kleber (BUF), as well as Cole Eiserman (NYI), Cole Hutson (WSH), Trevor Connelly (VGK) and golden-goal scorer Teddy Stiga (NSH). One would expect all of those players to be invited to the World Junior Summer Showcase.
Other top prospects that would be eligible to attend from other countries include projected 2025 NHL Draft top pick Matthew Schaefer, 2026 NHL Draft No. 1 pick Gavin McKenna, top Swedish prospects Anton Frondell (2025) and Ivar Stenberg (2026) and a host of others.
Ridder Arena is the home of Minnesota’s Division I NCAA women’s hockey team.
Rosters for this event are usually announced in June.
Team USA is expected to announce their head coach for Team USA next week.
The event will first feature U.S. split squads playing teams from Finland and Sweden. Canada will have a split-squad game as well before the rosters are unified for the remainder of the tournament. The World Junior Summer Showcase is fully round robin and does not award an official championship as this is primarily an evaluation event.
Canada and the U.S. will play just once at the showcase, closing out the event on Aug. 2.
2025 World Junior Summer Showcase Schedule
All games played at Ritter Arena. All times Central
- July 27: USA White vs. Finland, 1 p.m.
- July 27: USA Blue vs. Sweden, 4:30 p.m.
- July 28: Finland vs. USA Blue, 1 p.m.
- July 28: Sweden vs. USA White, 4:30 p.m.
- July 29: Canada White vs. Canada Red, 4:30 p.m.
- July 30: Sweden vs. USA, 1 p.m.
- July 30: Canada vs. Finland, 4:30 p.m.
- Aug. 1: Canada vs. Sweden, 1 p.m.
- Aug. 1: Finland vs. USA, 4:30 p.m.
- Aug. 2: Sweden vs. Finland, 1 p.m.
- Aug. 2: USA vs. Canada, 4:30 p.m.
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