PHOTO: Bildbyrån
The groups are ready for the Ice Hockey World Cup in Sweden and Denmark next year – but must be redone.
“It will take a little more time before the groups are ready,” says Tony Wirehn, CEO of the WC organization in Stockholm, to Aftonbladet.
The distribution of the national teams across the two groups is determined by world ranking and in the first version the host nations ended up in the same, together with the world champion Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Norway, Kazakhstan and Hungary.
Broke audience records
The World Cup in the Czech Republic ended last Sunday, which was a roughly two-week long party with packed stands and also gold for the home team.
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An attendance record for the World Cup was set with almost 800,000 visitors. Next year, the men’s WC will be jointly organized by Sweden (main organizer) and Denmark.
– We are betting on somewhere around 300,000 visitors in the Globe and maybe a couple of hundred thousand in Herning, so around 500,000 feels like a good number, says Tony WirehnCEO of the WC organization in Stockholm.
Was a fiasco last time
The last time Sweden organized the Ice Hockey World Cup was together with Finland two years in a row, in 2012 and 2013.
It ended with audience fiasco after criticism of high ticket prices, 17 million kroner in deficit and a subsequent savings package of 10 million kroner for Swedish ice hockey.
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Now the tone is more positive – although Tony Wirehn emphasizes:
– Of course it is a risky project. We have a turnover cost of around SEK 200 million, which we will basically finance with ticket revenue, a little partnership and hospitality.
– So it’s a big pot that’s going in, but we’ve made a budget that we can hopefully reinvest in Swedish ice hockey, adds Wiréhn, who was hired at short notice as a manager in 2013 to clean up the chaos after 2012.
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