[elly63]

Originally Posted by cjones2451

Not surprisingly, Ottawa and Regina are out of contention as host cities, Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal left for Canada

So the four cities are just still in the running and none are a given if I interpret this correctly. Also there has yet to be a statement AFAIK that a host country will automatically qualify, as in the past, which would be kind of a drag if we hosted and didn't have a team there.

Just to put some of this into perspective here is how the tournament will go, I think

The tournament will open with a group stage consisting of 16 groups of three teams, with the top two teams progressing from each group to a knockout tournament starting with a round of 32 teams.

The number of games played overall will increase from 64 to 80, but the number of games played by finalists remains at seven, the same as with 32 teams, except that one group match will be replaced by a knockout match.

The tournament will also be completed within 32 days, same as previous 32-team tournaments.