Malmö sets European records
by Martin Merk|05 JAN 2014
MALMO, SWEDEN - JANUARY 5: Finland and Sweden prepare to face each other for gold in the final game at the 2014 IIHF World Junior Championship.
photo: © Francois Laplante/HHOF-IIHF Images
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Malmö already broke the Swedish record after a few days. Only 63,493 attended the same number of games in the smaller cities of Leksand and Mora in 2007. Before the medal day Malmö also overtook last year’s attendance of 110,175 fans in Ufa, Russia.

With the gold medal game the 2014 World Juniors broke the old European attendance record of 139,680 spectators set in Helsinki and Hämeenlinna, Finland, in 1998.

Malmö also set a European single-game attendance record for the World Juniors with 12,023 fans at the gold medal game. Most of the Swedish games were sold out at the Malmö Arena.

The global record was set at the 2009 IIHF World Junior Championship when 453,282 fans came to the event in Ottawa – a number that could be surpassed next season when the World Juniors return to Canada with Toronto (capacity 18,800) and Montreal (21,273) as hosts.

Malmö will be back hosting an IIHF event next year when the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship will be staged at Malmö Isstadion and Rosengårds Ishall.