MOSCOW, September 27 - RIA Novosti, Semyon Galkevich. The 2023 Ice Hockey World Championship will be held in St. Petersburg, the same year as the World Youth Championship, which will be hosted by Novosibirsk. The corresponding agreement was reached on Thursday at the semi-annual congress (IIHF) in Malta. The final decision will be announced at the IIHF Congress in May 2019, which will be held as part of the World Championships in Slovakia.
Background
Russia's plans to bid to host the 2023 World Championship were first announced in April, when the president of the Russian Hockey Federation, during a press conference at the Junior World Championships in Chelyabinsk, said that Russia was fighting for the right to host the tournament and was close to getting it.
What is Russia's experience?
Previously, the World Cup was held in the USSR/Russia in 1957, 1973, 1979, 1986, 2000, 2007 and 2016. St. Petersburg hosted the world championship in 2000 and 2016 (together with Moscow).
The total attendance at the 2016 World Cup in Moscow and St. Petersburg was 417 thousand 414 spectators (the average attendance at each match was 6522 spectators). In 2000, the total attendance in St. Petersburg was 318 thousand 449 people.
As the Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation told RIA Novosti, the decision of the IIHF Congress shows that Russia is still trusted in the sports community.
"Russia has extensive experience in conducting international tournaments... Every time we show the highest level of organization, which is confirmed by numerous reviews of competition participants. I am absolutely sure that the tournament in St. Petersburg in 2023 will not be an exception. The decision of the Congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation indicates that we continue to be trusted in the sports community and are guided by sports principles when choosing organizers of international tournaments," the minister said.
“I believe that the competitions in 2023 will also be held at a high level and the best hockey players in the world will perform at them,” the press service of the Russian Ministry of Sports quotes Kolobkov as saying.
According to Tretyak, the international sports community knows that Russia will hold the tournament at the highest level. “We have a lot of experience, we held the World Championships in Moscow, in St. Petersburg. They trust us because they know that we will carry out everything at the highest level. Now we are building the most big stadium in Europe, the 22,000th in St. Petersburg, it will host the World Hockey Championship,” he told RIA Novosti.
“We know how to hold world championships in any sport; we already held the Ice Hockey World Championship in 2016. It was a very great, high-quality event. The holding of the World Football Championship in 2018 was the highest level, the fans love it. There is trust, and there is a reason for it. The IIHF has shown that sport is beyond politics. They will still interfere, but this doesn’t happen in hockey,” the two-time Olympic champion Alexander Kozhevnikov.
Where will we play?
As noted by the Russian Hockey Federation, new arenas will be built in St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk specifically for the corresponding tournaments. In St. Petersburg the stadium will be designed for 22 thousand spectators, in Novosibirsk - for 10 thousand.
In August, the president of SKA (St. Petersburg), a member of the board and board of trustees of the Russian Hockey Federation, said that they plan to build the largest ice palace in the world in St. Petersburg, in which matches of the 2023 World Hockey Championship will be held.
“We are hatching an ambitious plan. We want to build the largest hockey palace in the world in St. Petersburg. I thank the city leadership for supporting us in this endeavor. I hope that in 2023 we will be able to hold World Championship matches in the new palace. We will focus on how at least 20 billion rubles. This is not government funding - private. Now we are discussing with Gazprom how this will be in detail,” Timchenko said.
Thus, the 2023 World Cup matches in St. Petersburg will be able to host the new 22,000-seat palace and the Ice Palace, built for the 2000 World Cup, with a capacity of 12,000 spectators.
The world championships in bobsleigh and biathlon and World Cup stages in many winter sports were taken away from Russia. One of the unpleasant consequences doping scandals our country fell into isolation - we were included in the list of “undesirable states” for hosting major tournaments.
After the restoration of RUSADA, the situation may improve, but in each sport everything depends on the international federation - in biathlon, for example, the Russian Biathlon Union is still “limited in rights”, and we should not expect any stages of the World Cup in the near future .
Fortunately, there were no problems with the IIHF in hockey, no, and there’s no point in waiting. Therefore, the question that Russia could be banned from the organization was never on the agenda.
And already in 2023 we will host two big tournaments at once - the youth world championship in Novosibirsk (it will begin in December 2022) and the adult world championship in St. Petersburg (in May).
According to our data, at the IIHF federation congress, which is taking place this year in Malta, a fundamental decision was made to give the 2023 World Cup to Russia. The 2024 World Cup will be held in the Czech Republic, the 2025 World Cup in Sweden.
By 2023, a new arena is planned to appear in St. Petersburg. The President has already stated his desire to build “the largest palace in the world” for the team: they were talking about a stadium for 22,400 spectators or even more. It will probably become the main arena of the tournament; the second option would be either " Ice Palace" (12,000 people), or "Yubileiny" (6,500).
In Russia, the World Championships were held three times in the new millennium: in 2000 - in St. Petersburg, in 2007 - in Moscow and Mytishchi, in 2016 - in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
For St. Petersburg, the new tournament is a great chance to declare itself as a hockey supercenter, even apart from the presence of SKA in the city. To do this, it is necessary to transform the huge interest in the club into high attendance at the future championship, and we are not talking about the matches of the Russian national team, where it will not be difficult to gather a full house. A 20,000-seat arena will obviously help set tournament attendance records in our country (and, perhaps, even in history), but at the same time, such a size requires the need to gather at least 8-10 thousand people at each game.
Either way, it's great. The most optimal compositions of the host countries are traditionally gathered for home championships - this year’s situation with a huge number of “refusers” for a number of reasons among Russian stars in St. Petersburg will not be under any circumstances and composition of the coaching staff.
So we are waiting for 2023. Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg - new modern arenas and many good hockey. It'll be cool.
Hosts of the World Championships since 2000
|
Country |
Qty |
Cities |
|
2000 (St. Petersburg), 2007 (Moscow, Mytishchi), 2016 (Moscow, St. Petersburg), 2023 (St. Petersburg) |
||
|
Finland |
2003 (Helsinki, Tampere, Turku), 2012* (Helsinki), 2013* (Helsinki), 2022 (Helsinki, Tampere) |
|
|
2002 (Gothenburg, Karlstad, Jonkoping), 2012* (Stockholm), 2013* (Stockholm), 2025 |
||
|
Germany |
2001 (Cologne, Hannover, Nuremberg), 2010 (Cologne, Mannheim, Gelsenkirchen), 2017* (Cologne) |
|
|
2004 (Prague, Ostrava), 2015 (Prague, Ostrava), 2024 |
||
|
Switzerland |
2009 (Kloten, Bern), 2020 (Zurich, Lausanne) |
|
|
Slovakia |
2011 (Bratislava, Kosice), 2019 (Bratislava, Kosice) |
|
|
2006 (Riga), 2021* (Riga) |
||
|
2005 (Innsbruck, Vienna) |
||
|
2008 (Halifax, Quebec) |
||
|
Belarus |
2014 (Minsk), 2021* (Minsk) |
|
|
2017* (Paris) |
||
|
2018 (Copenhagen, Herning) |
* The tournament has taken place or will take place in several countries
The hosts of the tournaments from 2019 to 2022 have been officially announced, from 2023 to 2025 - according to SE information
Attendance at World Championships in Russia
|
Year |
Cities |
General audience |
Average attendance |
Occupancy |
|
2000 |
Saint Petersburg |
318 449 |
5 687 |
58,93% |
|
2007 |
Moscow, Mytishchi |
330 708 |
5 906 |
56,67% |
|
2016 |
Moscow. Saint Petersburg |
417 414 |
6 522 |
66,67% |
One positive news for Russian hockey not limited. Let us remind you that Novosibirsk will definitely host youth championship world hockey championship in 2023. This decision was rejoiced not only in the third most populous city in Russia, but throughout the country. Considering that recently the youth championships of the planet almost regularly give away North America(there youth hockey very popular), the victory of Novosibirsk is doubly valuable.
Now it bombed even more loudly. According to our information, at the semi-annual IIHF congress, which was held in Malta, the most important thing for Russia and everything was adopted domestic sports solution.
In 2023, the World Hockey Championship will be held in St. Petersburg! In 2019, the tournament will be hosted by Slovakia, followed by Switzerland, Belarus and Latvia (together) and Finland, and then it will be the turn of the city on the Neva. It was the Northern capital that had the honor of hosting such a responsible competition. In 2024, the world hockey championship will be hosted by the Czechs, and in 2025 by the Swedes.
The 2023 Ice Hockey World Championship will be held in Russia
St. Petersburg promises to build the world's largest arena
In St. Petersburg, people live by hockey. Yes, yes, you shouldn’t give all the laurels of popularity and attention to Zenit. SKA matches are consistently sold out; a modern arena has already been built in the city, but that’s it in St. Petersburg.
“We have ambitions to build an arena with 22,400 seats, so that it will be a little more than the Canadians. Is there a 22,500 seat arena in Japan? So, we’ll make 22,600. While the project is not ready, it is in progress. In the end we will decide, if during this time someone else builds more, we will still be the largest. Our ambitious plans are to build the arena by 2023, in time for the World Cup. A few days ago in Sochi, we discussed this topic with Fasel, we have the potential to win the World Championship in 2023,” said the SKA president Gennady Timchenko.
So, by the time the championship is held in St. Petersburg, a new hockey stadium will be commissioned. This arena can and will certainly become the largest hockey stadium in the world. The Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex will be completely reconstructed; the preliminary cost of the project is estimated at 18 billion rubles. The location of the new arena will be ideal from a logistics point of view: both from the city center and from Pulkovo airport it is only a 20-30 minute drive.
“We will have the largest arena in the world.” Grandiose plans are being made in St. Petersburg
And a French club may appear in the KHL.
Why the 2023 World Cup in Russia is important
Major competitions in international hockey consistently cause a surge of interest in the game, and there is excitement from the viewer. In order to obtain the right to host the championship, there is constantly a serious struggle between the participating countries. And this is easily explained - greater interest in the game means more new players, more players - a higher competitive level of the domestic championship. When it comes to Russia, interest in hockey doubles. After all, hockey is very popular in our country.
Do not forget that during the final discussion, the IIHF takes into account many factors: from the availability of infrastructure in the applicant countries, to transport accessibility, and most importantly, to the experience of the candidates. Russia has no problems with any of these criteria. So the decision of the IIHF Congress is logical and fair. Our country has never received unsatisfactory ratings from the organizers. And, there is no doubt, he will not receive it.
The IIHF is confident in the possibilities
So all that remains is to congratulate our country, and in particular St. Petersburg, on such a significant event.
The 2023 Ice Hockey World Championship will be held in Russia, St. Petersburg. A decision on this issue was made at the IIHF semi-annual congress, which is currently taking place in Malta.
This decision will be officially announced in May 2019 at the annual congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation during the World Championships in Slovakia.
Earlier it became known that the 2023 World Youth Championship will be held in Novosibirsk. Thus, Russia will host the youth and adult hockey world championships in one year.
RIA Novosti
Which stadiums will the tournament take place at?
For the World Championships, a 23,000-seat arena will appear in St. Petersburg - the largest in the world. Initially, it was planned to reconstruct the Petburgsky Sports Complex, but later the Chairman of the KHL Board of Directors and SKA President Gennady Timchenko expressed doubts about the feasibility of this option:
“This question is for the engineers - will they be able to build a 22,000-seat stadium as a reconstruction? We started from reconstruction, but I, as an engineer, believe that this should be absolutely new arena made by modern technologies, which is important. The JCC was built for the Olympics, 40 years have passed. Technology has changed a lot in 40 years, building materials. We must use all this for the next 50, and maybe 100 years." - said Timchenko. (" Sport-Express")
