World Junior Championship has become 'a special tradition' since 1st tournament 50 years ago

The 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship marks the 50th anniversary of the annual 10-nation tournament featuring many of the best under-20 players in the world. It will be held at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul, Minnesota, home to the Minnesota Wild, and 3M Arena at Mariucci on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis, from Dec. 26-Jan. 5. Today, NHL.com staff writer Mike Zeisberger looks at how the tournament has grown since the first one in 1977.

TORONTO -- It’s fitting Dale and Mark Hunter are part of Team Canada’s braintrust for the 50th anniversary of the IIHF World Junior Championship.

After all, their older brother Dave participated in the first one.

As such, if anyone knows how much the tournament has grown, on and off the ice, it’s the Hunters.

"It’s changed so much," said Dale, coach of Team Canada for the 2026 tournament, which starts Friday in Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. "The publicity. The talent. The notoriety. All of it.

"There really wasn’t any of that when it started in 1977, other than there was plenty of skill with the guys who participated."

Indeed, what started as a holiday tournament has morphed into an event onto its own in the past five decades.

This year, a player like Canada’s Gavin McKenna, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, is already a household name and will draw plenty of eyeballs from fans all over the world. But that wasn’t always the case.

The first official World Juniors took place in Zvolen and Banská Bystrica Czechoslovakia in 1977, although it had been unofficially held the previous three seasons with the Soviet Union winning each time. Dale, now 65, and Mark, 63, were teenagers when their brother Dave, a forward with Sudbury of the Ontario Hockey League at the time, was invited to play for Canada.

"He got picked along with some other future NHLers like Al Secord, Ron Duguay, Brad Marsh and Dale McCourt," Dale said. "They ended up finishing second to the Soviets."

Though the two younger Hunter boys didn’t know much about the tournament at the time, Mark remembers the impression it made on his father, Dick.

"My parents went over there to watch," Mark said. "And when they came back, my dad told us, "You won’t believe how high-end hockey it was, with the speed and the skill and the toughness you have to have.’

"It’s amazing how it’s exploded since then. It’s so great for the sport of hockey."

The biggest growth spurt of the event, at least in terms of popularity, came in 1991 when Canadian all-sports network TSN purchased the rights to the tournament. Despite all the great hockey that had been played in it over the years, the Hunters suggest that the most publicized moment to that point likely was the famed Punch-up in Piestany on Jan. 4, 1987. In the final game of the tournament in Czechoslovakia, a 20-minute brawl between Canada and the Soviets broke out, resulting in the arena lights being turned off while the teams were on the ice and, subsequently, both teams being ejected from the event.

Once TSN took the reins, more eyeballs had access to the action. It soon became a right of passage north of the border during the holidays.

An eight-team tournament from 1977-1995, it grew to 10 in 1996. That was also the year the current format of two, five-team pools with preliminary-round play was instituted. Previously it had been a round-robin tournament.

"It’s a special tradition, you know, kind of like (college football) bowl season, in a way, in the U.S.," said Toronto Maple Leafs forward John Tavares, who won gold with Canada at the 2008 and 2009 World Juniors. "I mean, it's our pastime, right? And it's our boys playing. And it feels like it’s your neighbors that are getting suited up to go represent not just your country, but your communities and the sport, really, from the grassroots level.

"Most of these guys are going to be playing in the NHL under the big lights. And it's an amazing experience. The coverage of it is phenomenal."

Perhaps one of the biggest moments in the history of the tournament came on Dec. 29, 2017, when the U.S. and Canada played outdoors at New Era Field, home of the Buffalo Bills. Cale Makar scored the game's first goal for Canada, on the power play in the first period. Canada led 3-1 going into the third period but goals by Scott Perunovich and Brady Tkachuk tied the game. After a scoreless overtime, Kiefer Bellows and Tkachuk scored in the shootout, and Jake Oettinger clinched the U.S. when he stopped Drake Batherson in the fourth round of the shootout. The game set an attendance record for a WJC game with 44,592 fans.

That was the fifth time the U.S. hosted the tournament, with this year being the sixth. Canada has hosted it 17 times, the most of any country.

The impact of the tournament’s growth has been felt outside of Canada as well.

Yes, Canada leads the all-time gold medal list with 20, followed by Russia/Soviet Union/CIS (13), United States (7), Finland (5), Sweden (2) and Czechia (2). But it’s the Americans who have held the hot hand in the past decade, winning three of the past five, including two in a row.

For Chicago Blackhawks forward Frank Nazar, who had eight points (all assists) for 2024 gold medal-winning Americans, the fact that the games began being shown live in the U.S. on carriers like NHL Network has helped spiked interest there.

"I think my first memory of it was in 2017 when Troy Terry scored all those shootout goals, three against the Russians, then one against Canada, to win the final game," Nazar recalled. "That’s something a lot of the U.S. kids will always remember. But for me, the most special one was helping us win in 2024. It’s something you can never go back to do, which makes it even more special."

Few have seen the event turn into what it is better than Gord Miller, who first started covering the World Juniors in the TSN studios in 1993. Two years later he became part of the network’s on-site team, the start of a run that will see him do play-by-play of the tournament for a 25th year.

"Certainly, the level of knowledge that the teams now have of each other is much greater than it was," Miller said when asked of how the event has changed on the ice. "I think the U-18 Tournament didn't start until 1999. So up until then, these players knew nothing about each other for the most part, right? There was very little familiarity.

"Now they're very familiar with each other. You’ve got more international youth tournaments. You’ve got more Americans and Europeans playing in the Canadian Hockey League. You've got Canadians playing in the NCAA. It's just very different. I mean, these guys know each other very well. And you know, also, with the advent of the internet, they're much more able to track each other. Even back then the players from different leagues and juniors didn't know each other very well. Like the Western guys didn't know Ontario guys, the Quebec guys and vice versa, and now they're all very aware of each other.

"One of the funniest things people say is ‘Oh, it only matters in Canada.’ Really? There was a three-way bidding war for the TV rites in Sweden. It's enormous in Finland and Sweden. It's very big in Czechia. When Russia was playing, it was popular there too. I mean, when the Swedes play, when the Finns play, there is full coverage of every game for them back in their countries."

Perhaps the greatest legacy of the World Juniors through its first 49 versions is the Iasting impressions it’s made, not only for the fans but for some of the sport’s greatest players who have had the privilege to participate in it.

So says Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid, who had 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in eight games to help Canada win gold in 2015.

"To me, World Junior has always been important," McDavid said. "I remember my year, with it being in Montreal and Toronto, the hype was huge. And I remember camp, I think they took us out, kind of outside the noise, and kind of set up outside of town and just tried to try to quiet the noise a little bit.

"It can be a lot for these young guys. Now the pressure is on for them. But it's such a great experience. It's so much fun.

"It’s a great opportunity for them."