Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold says he wants the Canadian players to feel supported in the state during the 2026 world juniors.
Team Canada will look to win world juniors gold on American soil, and Craig Leipold wants its fans to come watch.
The Minnesota Wild owner discussed the importance of rooting on the Canadians at the 2026 World Junior Championship in Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minn., in an interview with The Hockey News owner W. Graeme Roustan for the upcoming 2026 Money & Power issue.
Team Canada will play its Group B round-robin matches at 3M Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis, while the semifinals and medal rounds will take place at Grand Casino Arena, which Leipold's Minnesota Sports & Entertainment operates.
"This is all about your young Canadian hockey players," Leipold said. "It's about supporting them. Their headquarters is another arena, and you don't want them not being supported. They want to sense everything that all the other Canadian teams in the world juniors have sensed in the last 10 tournaments."
Canada hosted the world juniors six times in the last 10 years, including in Ottawa last year, when the United States captured gold for a second straight tournament. Canada lost in the quarterfinal.
The U.S., meanwhile, last hosted the world juniors in Buffalo in 2018, when the Americans won bronze, and the Canadians won gold.
As the number of visitors to Minnesota from north of the border have dropped about 18 percent in 2025 compared to 2024 as of August, partly due to negative sentiment toward the U.S., Leipold called for hockey fans to make the trip.
"Please come – we're going to have great seats available right now, and our hope is that as we get closer, the political issues will kind of, 'OK, we're going to set them aside; we need to support our Canadian young hockey players,' " he said.
This year, Canada and the United States are in different groups during the preliminary round, with the latter playing every game at Grand Casino Arena in Group A. That means if they meet up, it would be in the quarterfinals, semis, bronze medal game or gold medal game.
And Leipold knows a thing or two about the Canada-USA rivalry partly with the Wild's battles with the Winnipeg Jets in the NHL's Central Division.
"We have a tremendous amount of respect with the Canadians," he said. "I mean, Winnipeg and Minnesota, right there, there's a huge rivalry that started Day 1 when (the Atlanta Thrashers) moved to Winnipeg. So it's a friendly rivalry."
The 2026 World Junior Championship kicks off on Dec. 26 and runs through Jan. 5. The Americans start their pursuit of a third straight gold medal against Germany at 6 p.m. ET, while Canada faces Czechia at 8:30 p.m. ET.
"We hope they come down, and we'll enjoy a beer with them at night," said Leipold.
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Category: General Sports
