Buy or sell tickets to Ice Hockey World Cup Slovakia 2011

World Championship

Following the vote at the 2006 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Riga (Latvia), Slovakia will be hosting the 75th IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. For Slovakia – 2002 World Champion – this is the historically first IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship to host. It will be taking place at the Orange Arena (Ondrej Nepela Arena) in Slovakia’s Capital of Bratislava and at the Steel Arena in Eastern Slovakia city of Košice. The first face-off will be thrown on April 29th, with the championship ending on May 15th. In total sixteen teams will play a total of 56 games.

During the championship, some 350,000 spectators are expected to visit Bratislava and Košice matches, 1,000 accredited journalists from over 30 countries, around 190 involved TV stations, some 800 million TV viewers and about 3,000 hours of TV transmission world-wide.

The Vote

Slovakia was among four countries that applied for hosting the 75th IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship together with Sweden, Finland and Hungary. The fifth candidate country – Belarus – withdrew its application before the vote. The result was obvious already after the first vote in Riga on May 19th, when Slovakia received massive 70 votes, while Sweden and Hungary gained only 20 and 14 votes respectively. Finland withdrew its application only a few moments before the voting itself.

Watch the official candidate video of Slovakia:

Short History of Ice Hockey in Slovakia

Ice Hockey has a long tradition not only in Canada, but in Slovakia as well. In 1925, High Tatras hosted the European Ice Hockey Championship. The year 1929 is a milestone in the history of Slovak ice hockey, as the first year of Tatra Cup (the second oldest tournament in Europe) was organised in Starý Smokovec (also in High Tatras). On January 31st, 1929 the first hockey organization in Slovakia was established.

Bratislava hosted the world hockey elite in 1959, when one group of the World Championship was played here.