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2027 IIHF Men's World Championship Opener To Be Played In Soccer Stadium

2027 IIHF Men's World Championship Opener To Be Played In Soccer Stadium

The 2027 IIHF Men's World Championship opening game will be played at the home of FC Schalke 04 as Germany hosts Switzerland.

Jul 15, 2026 by Chris Peters
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The IIHF Men's World Championship Is Coming To FloHockey In 20270:29

The 2027 IIHF Men’s World Championship will kick off with a special opening game featuring host Germany against 2025 and 2026 silver medalist Switzerland. The game will be played in Veltins-Arena in Gelsekirchen – home to the Bundesliga’s FC Schalke 04 – on May 13, 2027.

This will mark the second time that Veltins-Arena, a soccer stadium with a retractable roof, will play host to an IIHF World Championship game. The U.S. played Germany in the facility in the opener of the 2010 IIHF Men’s World Championship with the hosts winning 2-1 in overtime in front of more than 77,000 spectators – which at the time was a world record for hockey attendance. It was supplanted a few months later when the 2010 Winter Classic saw more than 100,000 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

“Gelsenkirchen made ice hockey history in 2010,” said Matti Nurminen, director general of the IIHF. “With the opening game of the IIHF World Championship coming back to this iconic venue, we are building on that ice hockey legacy. The opening game between host Germany and reigning runners-up Switzerland brings together two top hockey nations in a matchup that promises an unforgettable start to the tournament.”

The rest of the tournament schedule is due to be announced at a later date. Germany vs. Switzerland will be the only game on May 13, with the rest of the tournament beginning the following day.

Mannheim and Düsseldorf are the primary host cities for the tournament for the remainder of the games. 

Group A, which features host Germany, will play its preliminary-round games in Mannheim. That group also includes defending gold-medalist Finland, last year’s runner up Switzerland, Sweden, Latvia, Austria, Slovenia and Ukraine.

Group B, which will be contested in Düsseldorf, features Canada, the U.S., Czechia, Slovakia, Denmark, Norway, Kazakhstan and Hungary. 

The 2027 IIHF Men’s World Championship will also mark the first year in a four-year agreement between FloSports and the IIHF to stream Men's World Championship events in the United States. FloHockey will carry every game of the tournament live and on demand.

How To Watch The 2027 IIHF Men’s World Championship

FloHockey is the exclusive home for the IIHF Men’s World Championship in the United States. Watch the game’s biggest stars go for gold with every game available live and on demand to U.S.-based subscribers. Sign up to watch every game of the IIHF Men’s World Championship plus thousands of other hockey games from leagues like the AHL, ECHL, OHL, QMJHL, USHL and many, many more. Sign up here.

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