Is Cologne such a good hockey city?
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BalticWarrior
Registered User
Certainly a bigger hockey city than frickin Paris, where im not sure if most people even know what hockey is.
Even less than Riga. And even in Riga other games beside Latvian and Russian ones would be half empty.
Gsus
MVP
Well, I mean is Cologne such a good hockey city, because it looks like people there love hockey a lot.
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tony d
New poll series coming from me in June
Nice to see the crowds there. I've always thought of Germany as the #8 hockey nation behind the big 6 and Slovakia.
Incredible crowds in Cologne 18 600+ AND 1000 TIMES MORE ATMOSPHERE THAN AT BORING NHL PLAYOFFS GAMES...
doug88
Registered User
If Cologne was a hockey town their DEL team would be at the top of Europe in term of attendance.
Vipers31
Advanced Stagnostic
As someone who lives in basically a suburb of Cologne, I'd say nah, Cologne isn't that much of a hockey city. There is a long and rich history of hockey in Cologne, so the team certainly has some very solid backing from fans by European hockey standards (AFAIK, we were back to #3 in terms of attendance in Europe this season). That said, you can't even really call it a "hockey city". It's a soccer and almost only a soccer city. That said, it's a big market, and there's a lot of passive casual fans, so when the team goes on a bit of a playoff run and plays playoff finals, it emulates a big hockey city for a couple days, before it reverts back to its usual state.
The World Cup is certainly enough of a fun event for some casuals to check it out. But it's not just about people from Cologne, to be fair; die hard hockey fans from all over Germany come around to catch some of the World Cup's atmosphere. Lastly, there's a lot of promotion action happening to not risk the look of a huge arena like ours looking brutally empty too often for a tournament like this.
The World Cup is certainly enough of a fun event for some casuals to check it out. But it's not just about people from Cologne, to be fair; die hard hockey fans from all over Germany come around to catch some of the World Cup's atmosphere. Lastly, there's a lot of promotion action happening to not risk the look of a huge arena like ours looking brutally empty too often for a tournament like this.
kmart
Registered User
- Jan 23, 2008
- 4,371
- 697
well said, i live in baden wüttemberg and tought about traveling to cologne but sadly i forgot to buy tickets sooner... how do u see chances to get on some tickets right now, preferably in a russian game ?
Vipers31
Advanced Stagnostic
If you want to go, I'd be pretty shocked if you couldn't at least still get tickets for the Russia-Denmark and Russia-Latvia games through the official channels (see here). Taken from the other thread, this is also part of it:
https://resale-cologne.iihfworlds20...Date&orderAsc=true&maxResults=25#searchHeader
There you go. Sorted by event date for you
By my experience, there's usually a lot of little raffles and promotions going on around it, like with facebook "contests" where many/most participants end up winning, just to boost active attendance, but that's tough to plan for ahead of time, and I used to stumble upon it by accident through friends particpating and stuff like that. Most of that experience is from the last WC, though, so maybe things are different this time around - but I'd be a bit surprised if they were entirely.
Zamboni Parade
Registered User
Some empty seats at the afternoon game today but I wonder if part of that was due to the Russian fans celebrating outside the arena following their win. They seemed rather fond of the beer stands outdoors 
Sure, but by the "soccer is bigger there" definition, are there any hockey towns in Europe at all? And if so, are they all in Finland?
Cologne and Düsseldorf are simply as good as hockey town gets in non-Bavarian Germany. I'd call Kiel a handball town and (3rd tier!!!) soccer is the biggest game in town there too.
Vipers31
Advanced Stagnostic
Not that many, but from what I heard, there are some in Switzerland and the Czech Republic, at least. Or that at least are significantly closer to being that.
Yeah, certainly no objection there.
It's a classic multi-functional arena (the hockey team is only one tenant). They have a ton of big-time concerts there; the superstars of the music business tend to make a stop in Cologne when they tour Europe. And while the arena is a bit oversized for just the hockey team (at our best, I think we were averaging 13,500 ten-ish years ago), it's still good business for the arena. It's the club that hurts from not being able to fill it out more, but they also don't really have any other (realistic) option (so far), so that makes it kinda hard to negotiate a better lease.
a) It is a big city, so the usual. Concerts, trade fairs, other sport events.
b) Their hockey teams does average 12k in attendance for regular DEL games (probably sells out against Düsseldorf or in the playoffs), so it's not like the arena is preposterously oversized.
almostawake
Registered User
Many in northern Sweden. Most of Switzerland to be honest, that is, if you restrict your consideration to only those that are actually Swiss. And, yeah, pretty much all of Finland.
Those are places I have personal experience with. There are likely more as well.
I am sure some Swiss cities do come closer than Cologne does, but FC Köln is pretty unfair competition to begin with. Haie could totally take on Young Boys.
Joking aside though, Switzerland is obviously more of a hockey country than Germany, not sure why I felt the need to point out they still prefer soccer too.Ambri-Piotta has the highest residents to specators ratio in the hockey world
