The next World Cup of Hockey won’t feature Team Europe or Team North America

There won’t be any gimmick teams at the next World Cup of Hockey.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said at the NHL general manager meetings in Florida on Tuesday that Team Europe and Team North America won’t be coming back to the tournament that the league is planning for 2024. Instead, it’ll return to its previous format from 1996 and 2004, which featured eight different countries.

The 1996 and 2004 tournaments featured the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany. In 2016, Slovakia and Germany were removed in favor of Team Europe and Team North America.

Team Europe featured players from European countries who weren’t in the tournament, such as Slovenia’s Anze Kopitar, Germany’s Leon Draisaitl, and Switzerland’s Roman Josi. Team North America consisted of any Canadian or American player under the age of 23, such as Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews.

While Team North America didn’t get out of the group stage, Team Europe advanced to the final, where it lost a best-of-three series to Canada.

Back in February ahead of the NHL All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas, commissioner Gary Bettman said the NHL was planning to host a World Cup of Hockey in February of 2024, which would be a change from the usual August and September dates that the tournament has had in the past.

Having an international best-on-best tournament is a priority for the NHL as the league backed out of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to concerns around COVID-19. Since the league also didn’t participate in the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey is the last major men’s best-on-best international hockey tournament that’s been played.