One Month to Go: The Pro League Returns in Córdoba, and This Time There’s an Olympic Ticket on the Line
The countdown is real now. One month from today, the FIH Hockey Pro League is back, and the 2026-27 season starts where the noise is loudest: Córdoba, Argentina, on 8 December.
Argentina get the honour of opening the season at home, and what a homecoming it is. The Leonas walk out as women’s World Champions, the Leones as men’s World Cup bronze medallists, and the Córdoba crowd will be right behind both. Their first tests are no soft landing either. The women face China and Great Britain in the opening stage, the men take on Great Britain and France, all between 8 and 13 December.
Then it is straight across the Atlantic. Valencia hosts the second stage from 14 to 22 December, with Spain, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands all in town before Christmas. Two stages, two continents, before the year is out.
The big story of the season, though, is who is back. India women are in the Pro League again after a dominant run through the Nations Cup, and they arrive with serious momentum: their best World Cup finish in more than half a century, then Asian Games gold. They join the fray in February, through stages in Argentina and on home soil in India. France men are back too, also via the Nations Cup, and they do not have to wait. The French start on day one in Córdoba, and anyone who has watched them over the past decade knows they love being written off as dark horses.
And the stakes have never been higher. Beyond the trophy and the ranking points, the winners of this season qualify directly for the LA28 Olympic Games. That is how Belgium’s men and the Dutch women booked their Los Angeles tickets last season, by winning the 2025-26 Pro League. Every regulation point and every shootout bonus counts double when an Olympic spot is sitting at the end of it.
The full itinerary runs to 144 matches across seven host nations. After the December double-header, the tour picks up again in February: Argentina (venue still to be confirmed, 9-14 February), the Gold Coast in Australia (13-21 February), and India (13-28 February). Then the European summer leg in June, with Wavre in Belgium, Berlin and Hamburg in Germany, and Utrecht and Den Bosch in the Netherlands all hosting between 12 and 27 June.
For our money, the opening fortnight sets the tone for the whole season. Argentina at home in December, with a World Cup title behind them, against Great Britain and France. If the Leonas and Leones both start fast, the rest of the league spends the next six months chasing them.
All 144 matches stream live on Watch.Hockey, with live scores and standings on the Hockey Live Scores app.
