2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, Germany & France

Official World Cup song “Playground” by CASCADA presented and released worldwide

• CASCADA frontwoman Natalie Horler is the official World Cup ambassador

Cologne/Paris, April 20, 2017 – The official song of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Cologne and Paris (May 5-21) is called “Playground” and comes from CASCADA, the global chart-toppers from Germany. The World Championship Organizing Committee announced this today during a press conference in Cologne’s LANXESS arena. CASCADA front woman and singer Natalie Horler, who was personally present, was also appointed official World Championship ambassador by Franz Reindl, President of the World Championship Organizing Committee.

CASCADA have had a meteoric career with international chart successes such as Everytime We Touch, Miracle, Evacuate The Dancefloor, San Francisco, Summer Of Love and The Rhythm Of The Night. Their rousing dance pop has brought frontwoman Natalie Horler and her producers and authors Yann Peifer (Yanou) and Manuel Reuter (Manian) top chart entries in more than 20 countries. Awarded several of the most important music awards (including the World Music Award 2007), they have established themselves as one of the most successful European dance acts. CASCADA albums and singles have achieved platinum and gold status several times and have reached top 2017 and even number 10 positions in the charts in several participating nations of the 1 IIHF World Championship, including the USA, co-World Championship host France, Sweden and Canada. CASCADA are also extremely popular in other Scandinavian countries and in Eastern Europe.

Franz Reindl: "We are delighted that we have been able to win Cascada, a musical world export from Germany, for the official song of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. With our wonderful, world-famous mascots Asterix & Obelix, one major entertainment-cultural part of the World Championship comes from the country of our co-host France. Now, with Cascada and the official song "Playground", the other important part of the World Championship entertainment, the official music, comes from Germany, but is equally popular in France as in all 14 other participating countries and beyond. Cascada therefore fits perfectly with our motto "Together for 2017". We are of course particularly proud that the video for the official song, which has been released worldwide, takes the sport of ice hockey as its theme and that our German national player Moritz Müller was able to play an impressive guest role."

Natalie Horler from CASCADA: “I feel it is a great honour that CASCADA was chosen for the official song of the Franco-German 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. When the idea was presented to us, we didn’t think twice. We really want to contribute to the great atmosphere in the World Championship arenas and hope that we can Fans with "Playground". Filming the official song video on the ice was a completely new and great experience for me.

“Playground” is now available in around 250 digital music stores worldwide, including Spotify, AppleMusic, Deezer, iTunes, Amazon, Google, Napster, Rhapsody, Tencent and many more. The link to the official video of “Playground” is: https://youtu.be/glRpL9fmxMA

CASCADA will perform live on several occasions during the 2017 IIHF World Championships in Cologne and Paris. Further information on this will be announced soon.

Tickets for the 2017 IIHF World Championship are available:
– online www.iihfworlds2017.com and www.facebook.com/iihfhockey
– By telephone on +49 (0)1806 2017 01 (0,20 €/call incl. VAT from landline networks, max. 0,60 €/call incl. VAT from mobile networks // Monday-Friday 10.00 a.m. – 19.00 p.m and Saturday from 12.00 p.m. to 19.00 p.m.)