For the first time in history, Denmark will host the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships. Earlier today, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) decided to pick the Danes over Latvia to host the event in four years' time.
Denmark's bid to host the annual competition in the two cities of Copenhagen and Herning was approved by 95 IIHF Congress participant votes in Minsk. Latvia, meanwhile, was given just 12 votes.
“This is a historic day for Danish ice hockey and thinking about all the work that has gone into getting this World Championships to Denmark, I dare say that it will never be beaten,” an ecstatic Henrik Bach Nielsen, the head of the Danish ice hockey federation, said in a press release.
Nielsen stated that Denmark was ready to host the event after spending 12 years mixing it up in the top A-Group with the other leading ice hockey nations of the world.
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Joy for Herning and CPH
The 64 games that a world championship entails will be played over 17 days at the Jyske Bank BOXEN rink in Herning and the yet-to-be-built Royal Arena in Copenhagen.
Next year, the world championships will be held in the Czech Republic (Prague and Ostrava) while Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) will host it in 2016. France and Germany will co-host the event in 2017, before the Danes finally get their chance.
The current championship in Minsk is now at the semi-final stage where Russia will take on Sweden and the Czechs will look to ice Finland. The Danes had an opportunity to make the quarter-finals, but lost its last two key group games to France and Slovakia to finish seventh in its eight-team group.
