When the Congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) during the IIHF World Championship 2006 in Riga, Latvia, decided to hold the 2011 World Championship  in Slovakia, certainly, many hockey fans were delighted, but the officials were facing a difficult task – to provide for a presentable ice hockey stadium in Bratislava. Based on various proposals, a solution to reconstruct the original ice rink at Tehelné Pole with a completion date by the end of 2010 was chosen. World-class hockey players will be playing in Bratislava and Košice from 29 April to 15 May, which means that the World Ice Hockey Championship is to be held in the country under the Tatra Mountains. Slovak candidacy received 70 votes, while the Swedish one only 20 and the Hungarian one 14 votes. The last time our country received such an honour was sixteen years ago, but at that time it was a lower category, namely Group B World Cup. Since then, a lot has happened in the hockey world and even Slovaks contributed significantly to the history of the fastest collective game. In 2000 they became the world vice-champions and won silver medals.
    Two years later, Slovakia made hockey history. A team led by Coach Ján Filc won a longed-for title of the world champions. In a memorable final match in Swedish Gothenburg, hockey players around Šatan, Bondra and Pálffy won 4:3 over Russia and brought home gold medals. A collection of precious metals was completed by the national team in Finland 2003, where we won the bronze medals. However, at the last year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, the Slovak hockey team did not perform well. So there is a huge chance that our hockey players may now continue the string of success of the previous period in front of the home crowd. The new arena in the capital of Slovakia and the training hall at Steel Arena in the east of the Slovak Republic are being built. One can assume that under the ideal conditions the World Ice Hockey Championship 2011 will be a great success.

    It is worth mentioning that the system of four groups, where groups A and D play in Bratislava and groups B, C in Košice will be used for the last time. The championship game system will change in 2012. Slovak hockey fans, however, believe that the year 2011 will be successful for our hockey, and other sports fans are showing their support as well.
         Milan Hanzel