The Int'l Ice Hockey Federation has officially received the bids for the right to host the 81st IIHF World Championship in '17. There will be two co-hosting bids for the tournament, one from Germany-France and the other from Denmark-Latvia. The plan of the Germany-France bid is to have Cologne, Germany as the primary venue, with the secondary venue located at the Palais Omnisport Paris-Bercy Arena in Paris. Cologne’s Lanxess Arena -- the biggest arena in Europe with a capacity for 18,000 spectators -- will host the semifinals and medal games. For Denmark, the main host for the championship, the '17 tournament would be the single biggest sporting event that the country has ever hosted. The site for the games in Denmark will be Copenhagen Arena, a planned multi-use indoor arena in the neighborhood of Ørestad Syd. Construction of the arena is set to begin in mid-'13, and will be able to host up to 12,500 spectators (IIHF). The German Hockey Federation (DEB) decided to go with Cologne instead of Berlin due to Cologne's closer proximity to Paris, its commuting area of around 32 million people in a 100km radius, the central location for hockey fans from both Germany and France as well as the distinctively higher capacity of the Lanxess Arena (DEB). The AP noted when Germany hosted the tournament in '10, "more than 77,000 fans were present in Gelsenkirchen for the opening match" between Germany and the U.S. (AP, 1/11).
