Today, Mint of Finland has opened a public vote to decide the design of the Ice Hockey World Championships 2012 collector coin.

At the same time, voters will be entered into a prize draw, in which everyone will have the chance to win a copy of the final minted coin. The results of the prize draw will be announced on 23 January 2012.

You can vote here.

A coin for hockey fans

Mint of Finland is getting its skates on and joining in the ice hockey fever by issuing a Ministry-of-Finance-commissioned coin for a nation of hockey fans. The 2012 Ice Hockey World Championships will be jointly hosted by Finland and Sweden.

"At the Finnish Ice Hockey Association we are proud that the World Championships will be commemorated with a collector coin. There are a huge number of hockey fans in Finland, so a collector coin will be a great souvenir for them," says the president of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association and the Organising Committee for the 2012 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, Kalervo Kummola.

Artists from all over Finland have sent 29 entries to the collector coin design competition, from which a Collector Coin Committee assigned by the Ministry of Finance selected 10 designs for the public vote. 

"The designs capture the excitement of the movement of our skilful hockey heroes on the ice and the atmosphere of the ice hockey arena. In April we will get to mint a coin that hockey fans everywhere can feel is their own," says Paul Gustafsson, a member of the committee and CEO of Mint of Finland.

The jury was made up of experts from the fields of art, minting and ice hockey The jury of experts that whittled down the number of entries for the public vote included Finnish Ice Hockey Association communications manager Henna Malmberg, industrial designer Hannu Havusto from The Finnish Association of Designers Ornamo, sculptor Anssi Taulu from the Association of Finnish Sculptors and architect Risto Iivonen from the Finnish Association of Architects.

The president of the Collector Coin Committee is Professor Yrjö Sotamaa of Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. The permanent members of the committee include Mint of Finland Ltd CEO Paul Gustafsson, Senior Budget Secretary Marja Kirppu from the Ministry of Finance, Head of Currency Department Mauri Lehtinen from Bank of Finland, University of Helsinki lecturer Maria Lähteenmäki and curator Heikki Halme of the Ateneum Art Museum.

Mint of Finland Ltd. is the leading mint in the Eurozone. It is the sole owner of the German coin-blank manufacturer, Saxonia EuroCoin GmbH, and holds a 50 percent share in the Norwegian Det Norske Myntverket. Mint of Finland is dedicated to designing, marketing and minting coins. The company is owned by the Finnish state. Mint of Finland produces metallic currency, commemorative and collector coins, as well as coin sets. In 2012, Mint of Finland will issue six new collector coins and two commemorative coins. To see how coins are produced, visit the 'About a Coin' exhibition at Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre. For further information about events in 2012, please visit: www.mint.fi