The best women hockey players in the world will skate into Upstate New York next year when the International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s Championship is held in nearby Utica.

A total of 31 games in the 10-team tournament are slated to take place April 4-14, 2024. All contests will be held at the Adirondack Bank Center and Utica University Nexus Center. Many players and team officials will stay at Turning Stone Resort Casino, putting the Oneida Nation Enterprises right in the center of the action.

Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter said hosting the tournament is a big deal for the region.

“We’re proud to be one of the partners in this special national event that will bring people from around the world to Upstate New York,” he said. “We have an intimate understanding of what a special part of New York this is, and we’re delighted to have the opportunity to share that with these athletes and the rest of the world.”

To put next year’s tournament into perspective, it will only be the fifth time in 22 tournaments that the IIHF Women’s Championship is held in theUnited States.

Since the event started in 1990, the U.S. has hosted the IIHF Women’s World Championship on four previous occasions, the last time in 2017 in Plymouth, Michigan, when Team USA took home gold on home soil for the first time ever. Other host cities have included Burlington, Vermont (2012), Minneapolis (2001) and Lake Placid, New York (1994).

Next year, Central New York will take center stage.

The historic Adirondack Bank Center, nicknamed, “The Aud,” is home of the Utica Comets, the AHL affiliate of the New Jersey Devils. In 2011 it was designated as a National Historic Civic Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in recognition of its innovative cable suspended roof.

The Utica University Nexus Center, which opened last year, is home of the Utica University women’s ice hockey team, and contains three ice surfaces. The two facilities are adjacent and connected by a walkway.

Shuttles will transport players from Turning Stone to Utica for games. We like to think our world-class accommodations and restaurants will give them a competitive advantage. We’ll find out next spring.