At 16:20 on Monday, the World Cup match between Sweden and Denmark starts in the Tampere arena. Both teams made the ice dangerous in the morning. Secretary General Heikki Hietanen opened the background of the problem to MTV.
At the World Ice Hockey Championships, the condition of the ice in the Tampere arena continues to speak volumes. Sweden will face Denmark in a match starting at 16:20 on Monday. Sweden still has a chance to win the group, Denmark is struggling to reach the quarterfinals.
On the morning of the match day, the Swedish team had placed a bucket to protect one point near the end line. of HockeyNews by (you switch to another service) the bucket had been placed to mark a dangerous bump.
– It was like a miniature of Mount Everest, downloaded the Swedish center Linus Johansson.
Johansson also described that point on the ice as a “retardation spring”.
The Swedes’ bucket can be seen, for example, in the one below in a tweet (you go to another service).
From the Swedes’ speeches, it’s hard to get a clear picture of what that part of the ice was like, but it’s about unevenness. Defender Anton Lindholm stated that he cannot understand what has happened to the ice. He described that there was a “ditch” at the finish line.
– If you go full speed towards the wing and your foot hits it, it can be bad.
Johansson was on the same lines.
– I hope they can fix it. Otherwise it would be life-threatening.
MTV Sports published (you are moving to another service) picture of the ice during Denmark’s training. There was a lot of water and melted spots on the ice, especially in the corners of the field. Danish NHL star Nikolaj Ehlers said you can’t play on ice.
– That’s my honest assessment, it’s too dangerous, Ehlers stated, but said he was confident that the ice would be fixed before the start of the match.
MTV Sports report (you switch to another service) also that behind the most recent ice problems is the desire of the International Ice Hockey Federation IIHF to make the sponsors’ logos more visible. Therefore, the rippling of the ice would have been caused by a freezing problem, the background of which would have been the brightening done on Sunday evening.
Secretary General of the World Cup Heikki Hietanen admitted to MTV about the ice problems in the morning, but believed that the situation would be fixed for the evening’s matches.
– Last night, a measure was taken to make the ice look really good on TV. All the lines come out better, and of course also the commercial aspects. It is done every game to brighten the ice.
The condition of the ice spoke already at the beginning of the Games. For example, Leijonien and Tapparan Walter Merelä told Urheilu that the ice has been much weaker than in the league season.
Hietanen and the IIHF have denied concerns about the condition of the ice.
– The ice is in good shape during training and games. The discussion has perhaps become bigger than what this is about, Hietanen said last Wednesday.