Ottawa beats out Saskatchewan cities to host 2025 world juniors

Saskatoon and Regina won’t be teaming up to host the 2025 world junior hockey championship.

The Saskatchewan cities joined forces on a bid to stage the event, but on Thursday, Hockey Canada announced Ottawa will be the host city for the tournament.

The event is to be held in the nation’s capital from Dec. 26, 2024 to Jan. 5, 2025. Ottawa last hosted the tournament in 2009.

Saskatoon and Regina shared hosting duties in 2010 and had launched a bid to host the 2023 tournament as well. Hosting rights for that event went to Halifax and Moncton.

In April of this year, SaskTel Centre CEO John Howden said it spoke volumes that the Saskatchewan cities were approached by Hockey Canada to bid again for the 2025 event.

“We believe we are a serious contender, and our work on the 2023 bid showed that,” Howden said at the time. “Hockey Canada, I think, looked at our bid and felt we should be in the running for this one as well.”

Five other communities would have hosted pre-tournament games as part of the Saskatchewan bid.