IIHF World Hockey Championship suffers worst attendance in two decades
The International Ice Hockey Federation's Men's World Hockey Championship is being considered a huge success in Finland after the host nation walked away with the gold medal, which induced a celebration that lasted for days. However, attendance-wise, it appears it was a flop. According to
Szymon Szemberg, who formerly worked with the IIHF and now works for an alliance of European hockey clubs, average attendance for the games in Tampere and Helsinki was 5,557 spectators. That's the lowest average attendance for games since 2002 in Sweden. On top of that, the total number of people in seats during the tournament was 347,628, the lowest in 12 years.
Heikki Hietanen, a council member with the IIHF, told Ilta-Sanomat that, given the circumstances, he considers the tournament a success. He believes two major factors decreased tickets sales: COVID-19 and the absence of Russian from the tournament.
Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the World Hockey Championship was pulled from that country at the last minute and awarded to Finland. While ticket sales were being made, organizers had to end up switching venues in Helsinki as the arena they were originally supposed to use was majority owed by Russian interests. On top of that, Finland and Russia are major rivals at the tournament. Without Russia playing, that rivalry was lost.
There will be more IIHF tournaments held in short order that will also exclude Russian teams. The postponed 2022 World Juniors taking place this summer, and the 2023 WJC in December will not have skaters from Russia. There are questions raised about the validity of tournaments that don't include one of the top teams in the world. However, at the same time, the IIHF felt it must do something to denounce the invasion of Ukraine, which is a member of the Federation.
| POLL | ||
JUIN 2 | 93 ANSWERS IIHF World Hockey Championship suffers worst attendance in two decades Would you by tickets for the IIHF Worlds if it were held in your area | ||
| Yes, it would be great hockey | 29 | 31.2 % |
| No, not interested | 31 | 33.3 % |
| Not sure | 33 | 35.5 % |
| LIST OF POLLS | ||
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Kyle Connor | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Alex Tuch | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Owen Power | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Michael Bunting | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Drew Helleson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jirí Kulich | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Isac Lundestrom | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Vladislav Namestnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Nino Niederreiter | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Gabriel Vilardi | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jason Zucker | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Leo Carlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nikolaj Ehlers | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ross Johnston | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Evgeni Malkin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Morrissey | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Cole Perfetti | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Bryan Rust | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mark Scheifele | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Trevor Zegras | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Jets | 20 | 17 | 3 | - | 34 | |
Wild | 19 | 13 | 3 | 3 | 29 | |
Hurricanes | 19 | 14 | 5 | - | 28 | |
Devils | 22 | 13 | 7 | 2 | 28 | |
Capitals | 19 | 13 | 5 | 1 | 27 | |
Golden Knights | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Maple Leafs | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Rangers | 18 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 25 | |
Panthers | 20 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 25 | |
Flames | 20 | 11 | 6 | 3 | 25 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||