Ground Breaking Changes Touted For Euro Hockey Tour Including Annual Participation From Canada, USA

It's being touted as "a new era" for the Women's Euro Hockey Tour. According to European federations, Sweden, Czechia, Finland, and Switzerland have joined together for "a common cause" to "work together" to strengthen European hockey over the next four years.

Included in this will be Canada and USA's participation over the next four years, aside from the 2026 Olympic year, in December Euro Hockey Tour competition.

"We see every year that the number of girls and women's players increases, the interest is on the rise and the sporting competition at the top of the world gets bigger and bigger every season," said Christer Plars of the Swedish Ice Hockey Association in a federation press release. "The fact that we have reached this arrangement means that we are increasing the possibilities for continued development within both the sport and the commercial side."

While the events will primarily be a Four Nations format, Germany will also participate at times making it a Five Nations event, and Canada and USA will join in the December tournament each year.

"Very gratifying that we have come to a joint arrangement, to continue driving development forward. We and the other teams in the Women's Euro Hockey Tour are making strong progress and with this arrangement we ensure a structure where we will annually play matches that promote development," said Anders Lundberg of Sweden's national women's team. "The fact that we have also ensured that we will meet the USA and Canada in contexts other than championships, in three of the next four years, is very good news."

Germany will participate in the August and February events, hosted annually in Switzerland and Czechia respectively, the November tournament hosted each year in Sweden will be a traditional Four Nations format, while the December tournament, to be hosted in Finland this year, will rotate between Finland, Czechia and Switzerland each year, and will now include Canada and USA making it a six team event.

"This new Euro Hockey Tour is another big and important step in the development of women's ice hockey," said Patrick Bloch, CEO of Swiss Ice Hockey in a translated press release . "With the teams that are always participating and the invited guests, especially Canada and the USA, the Swiss women have the opportunity to compete against the best teams in the world four times a year."

"As Czech hockey, we are very much looking forward to cooperation with other federations," said Czech national team general manager Tereza Sadilová in her federation's press release. "The newly concluded contract is another significant step forward from the point of view of women's hockey. Each federation has signed a commitment to organize a tournament of the highest category once a year on its territory,"