Chicago a finalist to host hockey’s 2018 World Junior Championship – Chicago Tribune
Rocky Wirtz’s dream of bringing the World Junior Championships, one of hockey’s most prestigious events, to Chicago is a step closer to becoming a reality.
USA Hockey announced Tuesday that Chicago is among five finalists to host the 2018 event, along with Buffalo, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa. The annual championship features the top male hockey players in the world under the age of 20 playing for 10 nations.
The 2018 tournament will run from Dec. 26, 2017-Jan. 5, and Blackhawks Chairman Wirtz recently submitted the bid to have Chicago and the United Center play host in conjunction with the building of a new practice facility near the arena.
“Next to the Olympics, I think that’s the biggest hockey event there is out there,” Wirtz told the Tribune last week. “It would be great. There are so many different things you can do with this. (It’s) bringing people into the city, especially internationally, it’s great for the city and good for the sport and it’s good for us. We want to make this a 12-month sport and this is another way to do it.”
USA Hockey said the location for the ’18 World Juniors will be selected by the end of the year.
“We’ll likely further narrow the field in the next 60 days and then conduct in-person visits before making a final decision,” Mike Bertsch, assistant executive director of marketing, communications and events for USA Hockey, said in a statement.
“We had interest of varying levels from more than a dozen entities,” Bertsch added. “In the end, we’re extremely pleased with the group of finalists. The time and effort each put into the materials that were submitted is impressive and we look forward to continued conversations with each of the finalists.”
Many of the top players in the NHL have participated in the World Juniors, including Hawks captain Jonathan Toews, who helped lead Canada to gold medals in 2006 and 2007. Hawks teammate Patrick Kane won bronze for the U.S. in ’07.
The 2016 IIHF World Junior Championship will be held in Helsinki, Finland, while the 2017 event will take place in Toronto and Montreal.
Twitter @ChrisKuc
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