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250,000 fans expected in St. Paul for 2025 World Junior Hockey Championships

frederick melo, pioneer press
·6 min read

Early Friday morning, hours before the U.S. defeated Sweden in the World Junior Hockey Championship’s Gold Medal game, Jaimee Hendrikson took the microphone at a press event in Gothenburg, Sweden, to invite all 10 participating nations to St. Paul for the tournament’s 50th anniversary in two years.

Hendrikson, the president and chief executive officer of Visit St. Paul, the city’s tourism bureau, has her work cut out for her between now and Dec. 26, 2025, when the first of 29 games unfold at downtown St. Paul’s 18,000-seat Xcel Energy Center and the smaller 3M Arena at Mariucci on the University of Minnesota’s campus. It will be the largest event at the X since the Republican National Convention in 2008.

Over the course of 11 days, more than 400 athletes from across the world will compete in St. Paul and Minneapolis, drawing more than 250,000 spectators and support staff and filling some 6,000 hotel rooms nights. The hockey players, ages 17 to 19, many of whom have never skated together before, will begin arriving a week in advance of the official tournament, which runs from Dec. 26, 2025 to Jan. 5, 2026.

“It’s a worldwide spotlight,” said Hendrikson, in a phone call from Sweden on Friday. “It’s going to give St. Paul the chance to really show off the experience of our city, and put us on the map.”

Return to the U.S.

Minnesota hasn’t hosted the World Junior Hockey Championship since 1982. The tournament landed in Grand Fords, N.D., in 2005, with some games played in Thief River Falls, Minn. Otherwise, the championship — a debut event for many of the sport’s top young athletes and future National Hockey League stars — has largely alternated between Canada and European cities, while periodically returning to the U.S.

The International Ice Hockey Federation, which oversees the tournament, had long decided that it was time for the championship to come back to the states, but where it should land was left up to USA Hockey, which accepted competitive bids.

Finalists reportedly included Seattle, where Climate Pledge Arena is served by both a monorail — a 90-second ride from downtown — and a separate light rail service.

“It’s a real competitive process,” said Hendrikson, who was flanked at the Gothenburg press conference on Friday by top officials from the IIHF, USA Hockey and Minnesota Sports and Events — the regional sports commission for Bloomington, Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The draw of St. Paul

The Xcel Energy Center is celebrated as both a professional hockey arena and concert hall, but the draw for USA Hockey was more than the number of available seats and the quality of the ice.

“It’s totally more than that — knowing you have the venues, the hotel rooms, transportation, marketing, supplemental events,” Hendrikson said. “Really being able to show you’re going to be able to market and bring in the ticket sales. There’s really a high level of attention in considering what the athlete experience is going to be and making sure it’s going to be a great event for them, too.”

Convincing USA Hockey that St. Paul was ready for the athletes and their fans took multiple site visits and a reception last fall showcasing Minnesotan hospitality. By that October visit, USA Hockey had narrowed the field to Minnesota and just one other city, and officials wanted to see potential training spaces, medical areas, press boxes and even washer-dryers — “the nitty-gritty,” said Kelly McGrath, general manager and executive director of the X.

“It’s really the future of the NHL that’s going to be on our ice,” McGrath said. “There’s a lot of current Wild players that played in this tournament.”

Proximity to Canada — which hosts the championships about every other year — didn’t hurt. In Canada, television viewership of the World Junior Hockey Championship games is sometimes on par with the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“It’s a huge draw with Canadians, even here in Sweden,” Hendrikson said. “There are 3,500 Canadians here for the tournament. There’s tour groups. That accessibility for those fans from Canada is a big part of that appeal — our location.”

Others involved in the bid process included the Minnesota Wild, the University of Minnesota, the Meet Minneapolis tourism authority and the city of Bloomington, with the bid heavily led by Minnesota Sports and Events. The tournament typically revolves around two host arenas, which in some cities have been well over an hour’s drive apart.

“The fact that our two arenas are within a 15-minute drive or light rail ride is a selling point,” Hendrickson said. “Here in Sweden, between the two rinks, I believe we were able to hop on the tram, and it was between 15 to 20 minutes.”

While the bulk of the action will land in the Twin Cities, Hendrickson noted there will be opportunities to promote other hockey venues across the state. Forum News and the Rink Live reported Thursday that Minnesota Sports and Events envisioned early round games possibly being played in places like Duluth, St. Cloud, Mankato and Bemidji, although the full schedule has not yet been finalized.

Boost for hotels, bars, restaurants

St. Paul hotels, bars and restaurants get a sizable boost when the Minnesota State High School League hosts hockey or gymnastics tournaments downtown each winter, but the city and region aren’t as well known for the juniors — ages 17 to 19 — as, say, Seattle.

“Some of the communities we were up against didn’t have nearly the high school hockey scene we have, but maybe had a more active juniors hockey scene,” said St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter on Friday.

“It was a big goal to go after,” added the mayor. “Our team executed the proposal really, really well. We walked the selection committee folks through the X a couple of months ago and were able to show them what we have to offer, and how we’re used to supporting large events like this. They were really impressed.

“Our pitch to them is Minnesota is clearly the state of hockey. We’re the capital city, which in a way makes us the city of hockey,” Carter said. “It’s a big deal.”

Early Friday afternoon, hockey fans gathered at Tom Reid’s Hockey City Pub in downtown St. Paul to watch the U.S. and Sweden compete for the gold on television screens, while Hendrickson did the same live and up close in Gothenburg.

“Television viewership is huge across the world,” she said. “I think this is going to be really awesome for the Twin Cities. I’m just so thrilled.”

Minnesota Sports and Events has put together an online promotional guide to the championship at mnsportsandevents.org.

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