U18 Worlds’ games moved

Press Release

ZURICH – Because Kometa Brno’s improbable run to the final series of the Czech Extraliga, the schedule of the 2012 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship has had to be adapted. Some games will be moved to the other venue, Znojmo, and a third facility in Breclav.

Representatives of the Czech Ice Hockey Association met with IIHF management in Zurich this week after Kometa Brno, eighth of the regular season, had reached the finals.

This situation caused logistical and commercial complications for the event with Brno as the prime venue.

In order to minimize the changes in the schedule it was agreed to add a third venue with Breclav, 52 kilometres south of Brno. The games in Breclav will be played at the Alcaplast Arena with a capacity of 4,200 spectators, where the Ivan Hlinka Memorial for U18 teams is held every summer.

The schedule will be changed as follows:

Game no. 5 (Czech Republic vs. Denmark) on Friday, 13 April will be moved from Brno to Znojmo, new game time: 15:00.
Game no. 6 in Znojmo (Switzerland vs. Latvia), will start at 19:00 instead of 18:00.
The games scheduled in Brno on Saturday, 14 April – no. 7 USA vs. Czech Republic (16:00) and no. 9 Canada vs. Finland (20:00) – will be moved to Breclav. The game times stay the same.
The quarter-final games on Thursday, 19 April, will be moved from Brno to Breclav: game no 21 (A2 vs. B3, at 15:00) and no. 23 (B2 vs. A3, at 19:00). The game times stay the same.

The game schedule on IIHF.com will be adjusted as soon as possible.

After looking at all possibilities, the IIHF came to the conclusion that these changes have the least possible impact on the game schedule so that the teams are affected as little as possible by this very difficult situation.

The games of the preliminary round on the opening day (12 April), from 15 to 17 April, the semi-finals (20 April), the fifth-place game (21 April) and the medal games (22 April) will be played at the Kajot Arena in Brno as planned.

(Nathan can be reached at fourniern@students.nescom.edu)