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Since Friday, January 30, 2009, tickets for the 2010 IIHF World Championship are available. The results of the first sales weekend produced beaming faces among all members of the Organizing Committee. 35,000 tickets – believe it or not – could already be sold for the opening game in the VELTINS-Arena of Schalke.

Says Franz Reindl, General Secretary of the Organizing Committee: "Our internal bets for the first sales weekend were assuming some 10,000 tickets and we would have valued this as a very good result. Nobody though would have expected that approximately 460 days before the World Championship almost half of the 76,000 tickets for the opening game would be gone. Of course we are very happy about this enormous interest of the fans and we also do see this as an acknowledgement of our decision to go to Schalke. Also with some 5.000 already sold tickets for the games in Cologne and Mannheim, we are very happy. "

First World Record certain
A first world record for the opening game, which is intended to become the most visited Ice Hockey game of all times, is already certain. The world championship indoor record of 18,539 spectators, set in Cologne in 2001 during the game Germany vs. Czech Republic, will be outnumbered in any case.

Tickets for the opening game and a variety of attractive package offers for the games in Cologne and Mannheim can be purchased as follow

• Internet: www.iihfworlds2010.com
• Ticket-Hotline +49 621 18 19 0 333 (usual fees for calls into German landline network)
• On-site Ticket Shops of LANXESS Arena (Cologne), SAP ARENA (Mannheim) and VELTINS-Arena (Gelsenkirchen)

The 2010 IIHF World Championship takes places between May 7 and May 23, 2010 in the LANXESS Arena in Cologne, the SAP Arena in Mannheim and the VELTINS-Arena in Gelsenkirchen. The Organi-zing Committee headed by President Uwe Harnos and General Secretary Franz Reindl, is awaiting 500.000 spectators at 56 World Championship games of the world's 16 best Ice Hockey nations. App. 1.000 accredited journalists as well as around 190 involved TV stations will broadcast from Germany into more than 100 countries. Some 800 million viewers worldwide will follow the 2010 IIHF World Championship on TV.