STOCKHOLM – Swedish organizers of the 2012 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship have added a new ticket category in an effort to encourage more spectators to see upcoming games and spur ticket sales, it was announced today.

Click here for a video with Christer Englund.

Christer Englund, Chairman of the Swedish Organizing Committee, said that recently there has been plenty of public and player input regarding the issue of how to promote greater fan involvement for Sweden games at the Globe Arena.

“To that end, we will offer 2,400 seats in what we call Category 4 to encourage getting more fans to our games,” said Englund. “What we have done is extending the amount of seats in the lowest ticket category for 395 SEK.

The newly created price plan is for seats located on the short sides of the arena on the upper level and lower ring. The seats have not been previously sold and instead being offered at a newly created price point.

There are no plans to reduce prices for current ticketholders.

“We will now have four price categories with the most expensive ticket being 1495 SEK and the cheapest ticket being 395 SEK,” said Englund of the pricing plans.

These changes apply only to games of the Swedish national team; all other prices will stay the same.

“We don’t have the same structure of the price for other teams. For example all other games the lowest price is 125 SEK and the highest price 770 SEK. What we have to do, of course, to bring people to these games, too.”

Englund said these changes were made because of input they’ve received in recent days and to stimulate additional attendance. He also felt that the demand for the consumer dollars, owing to other sporting events, might have also been a factor.

“I think we have competition in Sweden because football season has started and we also know that more fans are going to the European Championships in Ukraine,” he said. “People are choosing to go there and see games and we are affected by this.”

It was also announced that the Sweden-Russia game on Friday, May 11 is sold out.

JOHN SANFUL