The Federation of International Bandy -FIB- has approved the match schedule for the boys’ U16 Club World Cup, which will open its 2026-2027 international season from October 30 to November 1 in Katrineholm, Sweden. Ten teams will compete at the Kronfågel Ice Arena in a youth tournament with a history spanning several decades, also known as the ‘Mini World Cup’. Approval of the schedule by the Technical Committee confirms the opening event of a season that will retain its youth competitions but feature no senior Group A World Championships.
The field will comprise six Swedish teams, three from Norway and one from Finland, divided into two groups of five. IFK Vänersborg, the 2025 champions, will share Group B with Røa IL Bandy, IK Sirius, Spånga/Lunden and ØHIL Bandy. Group A will feature Katrineholm/Västerås SK, Narukerä Pori, Ready Bandy, Tillberga/Örebro and Villa Lidköping BK, last year’s runners-up. The two teams that contested the 2025 final will therefore begin in separate groups.
Katrineholm continues the ‘Mini World Cup’ tradition
The tournament returns to Katrineholm after relocating there in 2025 from Bollnäs, where it had been held for many years. The Swedish Bandy Federation is the host association, while Katrineholm Bandy handles local organisation. The move retained the involvement of Klas Ström, who had been involved in organising the event during its years in Bollnäs. This autumn’s edition will continue the tournament’s presence at its new venue within FIB’s youth club competition calendar.
The municipally owned Kronfågel Ice Arena, inaugurated in October 2020, has an ice surface measuring 110 by 63 metres and capacity for approximately 2,000 spectators. Those dimensions accommodate a sport played with skates, sticks and a ball on an ice field comparable in size to a football pitch. At this venue, Vänersborg won the 2025 final 4-3 against Villa Lidköping after the teams went into half-time level at 3-3. Felix Forsström scored the decisive goal in a match in which the eventual champions had initially established a 3-0 lead.
A season without senior Group A World Championships
The main change to the international calendar concerns senior national teams. The men’s and women’s Group A World Championships will not take place in 2026-2027, following last season’s outdoor tournaments in Pori, Finland. “Finland, Norway and Sweden have decided not to participate this coming season due to financial reasons,” FIB explained in the statement announcing its programme. The federation’s competition page states that both championships will return in 2027-2028.
The position for Group B is different: its men’s and women’s World Championships remain subject to a final decision by the Executive Committee, which will consider staging them despite the absence of Group A. For senior national teams, FIB also announced that the Norwegian and Swedish federations were working on a proposal for friendly matches or tournaments in either country. The proposal envisaged men’s and women’s competitions involving three or four national teams, although dates, participants and formats remained to be confirmed and approved.
The next events on the youth calendar
After Katrineholm, the girls’ U17 Club World Cup is scheduled for November 6-8 in Mölndal and Gothenburg, with Västerås SK as the defending champions. The boys’ U19 and U17 club competitions will take place at the Gubbängen indoor arena in Stockholm: the first on January 2-4, 2027, and the second on January 4-6. The consecutive schedules will allow both tournaments to use the same venue, an arrangement adopted in previous seasons.
The girls’ U17 and boys’ U17 and U19 national-team World Championships are scheduled for April 1-4, 2027, in Uppsala, with the Swedish Bandy Federation as host association and Uppsala BoIS responsible for local organisation. Sweden won all three competitions in 2026, when games alternated across four days at the same venue. As FIB highlighted when presenting the new season, players combined competing on the ice with taking their places in the stands to support their country’s other teams.
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