The Hockey Stop

Hockey fans in the United States and Canada are rightly focused on the NHL playoffs. But on May 7 the rest of the world will be turning their attention to Gelsenkirchen, Germany, and their television sets to the opening game of the 2010 Ice Hockey World Championship.

And the 90-year old tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation will be groundbreaking regardless of the competing country (48 teams participating) that rises to the top of the tourney.

There are two reasons why this year is special.

Number one, viewers in Germany will be able to watch the opener in 3D as long as they of course have a 3D-compatible TV set and 3D glasses. The first live 3D broadcast of a professional ice hockey game occurred during the current NHL season with a game between the New York Rangers and New York Islanders at MSG. But that was only for Gotham-area Cablevision subscribers. The World Championship opening game is a collaboration between Deutsche Telekom and Constantin Medien and will be available all over Germany via pay TV channel Liga Total!.

The second reason is the size of the venue where the match is taking place. The Veltins-Arena (pictured above) is a soccer stadium that will be reconfigured for hockey with a potential record capacity crowd of 76,000. That would surpass the current world ice hockey attendance record held by Michigan State University at 74.5 thousand. And none of the NHL Winter Classics have reached that level. The highest-attended NHL game ever was the January 2008 game at Buffalo's Ralph Wilson Stadium, when 71,000 people watched the Penguins play the Sabres in the snow.

This will be the first international competition since the Vancouver Winter Olympics (minus NHL players) so it should be exciting to see which country shines this time.