Hopp Schwiiz: At the Ice Hockey World Championship in Copenhagen

Thierry Pool

15.5.2018

Translation: machine translated

Once a year, when the national league has long since taken a break, a few hundred Swiss get the travel bug in May. The Ice Hockey World Cup beckons, often with sunny weather and exciting destinations. Unfortunately, there were two defeats this weekend in Copenhagen, but I can still draw a positive conclusion.

The tradition of travelling to the World Cup began for me in 2009, when the World Cup was held in Switzerland. Back then, the games were played in Kloten and Bern, and because a visit on the doorstep was obvious, one or two match days were on the programme. It was similarly easy in 2010: although Mannheim wasn't quite as close, it was easy to combine a visit to the World Cup with a trip to beautiful Heidelberg. No sooner said than done
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And so it went on, with one or two interruptions: in 2012 I travelled to Stockholm, in 2015 to Prague, in 2017 to Paris and for the first time to Cologne for the finals. This year, Copenhagen was on the programme. With two Fridays, it was possible to combine a nice long weekend with three Swiss matches and a day off.

Guidebooks

Marc O'Polo Copenhagen

German, Andreas Bormann

On Saturday, shortly after arriving in the north, we received the good news that Roman Josi and Kevin Fiala would be joining the team. In high spirits, we made our way to the Royal Arena, which is usually used for concerts and events but has now been converted into an ice hockey arena for a fortnight. The organisers didn't promise too much, and the arena was able to keep up with the atmosphere, especially as it was packed for the two matches against Russia and Sweden.

The quality of the catering is debatable. The fact that you can almost only pay cashless is actually also very progressive, but the selection is somehow a little unimaginative with burgers, hot dogs, pizza, salad or popcorn.

And the price level - in keeping with the tradition of the north - is rather high. But never mind, we had actually travelled here for the ice hockey games, and so far they have lived up to their promise.

The Swiss suffered a narrow defeat against Russia on Saturday evening in their fifth group game. Still without the aforementioned reinforcement of Josi/Fiala, the national team put in an appealing performance and fought their way back into the game several times, most recently with Gaëtan Haas' goal in the 59th minute to make the final score 3-4 with 6 against 4 outfield players. The fans, most of whom favoured Switzerland (Swiss even sent a fan plane to the game, as could be seen on Instagram), got their money's worth despite the defeat.

We knew it would be different against Sweden on Sunday evening. And it was already unmistakable on the way to the stadium at Copenhagen Central Station: although we heard a lot of Swiss German in the city this weekend, the yellow of the Swedes was just as unmistakable. And so it was clear what picture awaited us in the stadium: Sweden in front of us, Sweden to our left, Sweden to our right ... and Ticino in the row behind us. After all,

However, the blue and yellows had much more reason to celebrate than we Swiss. Thanks to an empty-netter from the Swedes in the 57th minute, victory was secured shortly before the end, even if Dean Kukan was able to cut Tre Kronor's three-goal lead to two goals in the 59th minute. The final score was 3:5, again we had seen a lot of goals and celebrated three of them. But again the result was a defeat against one of the great ice hockey nations, again the Swiss had fallen behind due to stupid penalties, again it had taken too many attacks to score. At least Josi and Fiala got to play after their arrival on Sunday morning - and put in a good performance in the third period in particular.

That gives hope. Because the Slovaks had no chance against Russia, a win against France on Tuesday afternoon will be enough to qualify for the quarter-finals, which is actually a realistic possibility with this squad. We'll be in the stadium then too, waving the Swiss flag again and hopefully heading back to Switzerland with a win behind us. We have already seen the beauties of Copenhagen on Monday - on the day off. Because a World Cup trip like this is more than just ice hockey, especially because of the match date in May.

PS: Did you know that we have over 1,000 ice hockey products in our range?

On the way home

As expected, Switzerland left nothing to be desired against France. Even though the game was a little sluggish at times and the crowd was largely made up of invited school classes, the end result was a 5:1 victory against the clearly inferior French. And so I experienced a conciliatory end to my trip, during which I was able to cheer on 11 Swiss goals. On Thursday at 16:15 (20:15, because the home team, the Danes, have unfortunately been eliminated), the Swiss national team's journey continues at the second venue in Herning against Finland. And after that? Is there more to come? I'm looking forward to your opinion!

Thierry Pool

Head of Digital Marketing and Media Planning

thierry.pool@digitecgalaxus.ch

I’m passionate about observing the development of the digital environment – particularly when it comes to the countless exciting and interesting challenges and changes it has in store for our society, our everyday lives and businesses. Apart from that, gaming has been a part of my life since I first started out at Digitec Galaxus as well as IT in general, travelling, sports, concerts and good food. more

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