It’s the biggest annual winter sports event worldwide – nope, not indoor soccer. From May 4-20, the 2012 IIHF World Championship will be held in Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden, where the world’s top teams will compete for the highest title in hockey.
This year, the IIHF will debut its new championship format in which the 16 teams will be split into two groups of eight. Each team will play in seven preliminary round games to determine the four who will enter the quarterfinals. From May 4th to 17th, Helsinki will house the players from Finland, Canada, the U.S., Switzerland, Slovakia, Belarus, France and Kazakhstan, while the remaining eight teams will play their preliminaries and quarterfinals in Stockholm. On May 19th, Helsinki will hold the two semi-final games and on the 20th, the bronze medal game will precede the championship face-off of the two-week event.
Responding to suggestions from fans, Helsinki now offers single game tickets rather than selling packages of games, making it easier to enjoy a day at the rink without committing to the price of a week’s worth of tickets.
This year, a record 650,000 estimated spectators will crowd the bleachers of Hartwall Arena in Helsinki and the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, because watching hockey without the risk of a puck to the face isn’t nearly as fun.
The tournament expects to reach 735 million TV viewers over 2500 hours of broadcasting. An even more impressive figure: at the 2010 World Championships, the players ate a total of 17,000 pieces of fruit.
www.iihf.com/channels-12/iihf-world-championship-wc12/home/welcome.html