The CAN/AM Challenge Cup returns to Pittsburgh January 16–18, 2027, played at the RMU Island Sports Center on Neville Island. It lands on MLK weekend, every team is guaranteed at least four games, and the rinks run early and late across all three days.
What the weekend actually looks like
Tournament headquarters sits in the Island Sports Center lobby — standings, locker assignments, souvenirs. Between games you have hours to fill with a squad of kids in gear, which is the part nobody plans for. Neville Island is about twenty minutes from Downtown, so the city is easily reachable for the gaps: the Carnegie Science Center and the museums on the North Shore are the reliable answer with a team in tow.
January in Pittsburgh is cold and the rink is colder. Pack accordingly, and plan on somewhere warm to go back to between sheets rather than sitting in the stands for nine hours.
Read this before you book anything
CAN/AM runs a stay-to-play policy. Teams travelling from more than 60 miles away are required, as a condition of acceptance, to reserve through CAN/AM’s authorized hotels, with a minimum of 20 room nights per team booked via the CAN/AM website. Published rates hold until roughly 60 days before the tournament. If you are a team manager for an out-of-town club, start there — not here. We would rather tell you that than take a booking that causes you a problem at registration.
Who we can actually help
- Local and nearby teams inside the 60-mile radius, who are not bound by the policy.
- Extended family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings coming to watch are not part of your team’s room-night block. A whole home for the wider family, near the rink, is often the better and cheaper answer than more hotel rooms.
- Anyone staying beyond the tournament. Once the required nights are met, the rest of the trip is yours to book how you like — and MLK weekend is a good excuse to add a couple of days in the city.
Why teams book whole homes here
A tournament weekend is three or four nights for a group that travelled together, and hotel blocks handle that badly. A whole home gives you a kitchen for the breakfast before a 7 a.m. start, laundry by day two, somewhere for families to eat together instead of scattering, parking for the cars and the gear, and a living room where the team can actually be a team between games. Split across families it usually lands under a block of rooms.
Booking for several families at once? Tell us what you need and we will work out the configuration — we have hosted 2,700+ guests since 2018 and travel teams are some of our favourite bookings.
Hockey weekends are the ones where laundry matters most. Four games in three days produces gear that a hotel room cannot cope with.
Part of our travel-team housing guide.
Where to stay. Rivers & Steel City Homes offers full homes across the Pittsburgh metropolitan area — parking, a kitchen, and room for everyone who travelled in. 2,700+ guests since 2018; book direct and save 5–15% over Airbnb and VRBO. Lock in your dates at riversandsteel.com/search.
More to plan your trip: Things to Do in Pittsburgh · Pittsburgh Food Guide. Ready to visit? Find your stay »
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