Individual tickets for the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship games begin Friday, March 10 at 10:00 a.m
Ø Already 450.000 cards gone
Ø For some games there are only remaining cards left
Cologne/Paris, 09.3.17 – Since the beginning of the year, the phones have been hot at all points of contact for tickets for the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship and the question is always the same: “When will individual tickets be available?” On Friday March 10st at 10:00 p.m Now the time has come: the server capacities for booking on the online ticket portal will be increased to maximum capacity and additional lines will be switched on for the telephone ticket hotlines in order to cope with the expected rush.
With the start of individual ticket sales before mid-March, the World Cup organizing committee will live up to the promise it made from the start to offer individual tickets for all 64 World Cup games in spring 2017 - even though the demand for day tickets, i.e. tickets for all games, is one day, continues unbroken.
Around 450.000 tickets for both venues have already been sold through the sale of ticket packages alone. "We have therefore taken a big step towards the first target of 600.000 spectators even before individual ticket sales have started," said Franz Reindl, President of the World Cup Organising Committee, who is very satisfied with the way ticket sales have gone so far and added: "This means that a great atmosphere in the arenas is already guaranteed today and the rush for tickets usually only really starts when individual tickets are sold."
As expected, there are only a few tickets left for some games and days. This is especially true for match days involving the German team, but also the teams from Russia and Sweden in Cologne. The first games at the World Cup venue Paris are also selling out. The games of hosts France, Switzerland, Canada, Finland and the Czech Republic are particularly in demand there.
Of course, the previous ticket packages will remain on offer, as long as they are still available, but now the focus is on individual tickets, which can be purchased from just €19. In addition to the games mentioned above, which will probably be sold out quickly, interest in Germany will now certainly be focused on the matches against opponents on the same level. The games against Slovakia on May 10.5th, Denmark on May 12.5th and Latvia on May 16.5th are guaranteed to be very exciting, as these are likely to decide whether the German team will qualify for the quarter-finals. There are probably no clear favorites in any of these games. This is why national coach Marco Sturm and his boys are relying all the more on the big “crowd joker”, the 18.500 passionate fans. Fans in a sold-out LANXESS arena in Cologne. "That much of a home advantage must be allowed at a home World Cup," said the national coach, who himself experienced an IIHF World Cup in front of his own audience in Cologne as a player in 2001 and remembers: "As a player, you also live off the spectators. That can give you the push you need."
The knockout games in the final round (from €49) will also be increasingly in the spotlight once individual tickets are sold. It should be noted that Germany would definitely play in the evening match on May 18th in Cologne if they reached the quarter-finals. Buying a ticket for this game or even the semi-finals may seem like a speculative bet on a great tournament for the German team at the moment, but World Cup Secretary General Henner Ziegfeld has the following advice for anyone who is hesitant: "It's all happened before. Just ask those who were able to attend the German team's inspiring World Cup performances up until the last day of the tournament in 2010. They still talk about it today. It's better to buy now than to be left out later." Either way, the following applies to all tickets and games that are still on sale: only while stocks last.
Tickets for the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Cologne LANXESS arena and the Parisian AccorHotels Arena there are, among others:
– online www.iihfworlds2017.com and www.facebook.com/iihfhockey
– By telephone at +49 (0)1806 2017 01 for Cologne and +33 892 69 20 17 for Paris (telephone charges, depending on the calling country and telephone network)