IIHF addresses media

IIHF President Rene Fasel and his colleague on the IIHF Council, Frank Gonzalez, who is the Chairman of the 2015 IIHF World Junior Championship Directorate, addressed the media before the semi-finals.

“We’ve had a great event, and we’re doing quite well with the numbers. Hopefully the semi-finals and medal games will be up to the talent and the type of hockey we expect at this level,” Gonzalez said.

“It’s a great pleasure to be back in Canada. It’s very special for the juniors. For some of the players it’s a lifetime experience for them to play in front of so many spectators,” Fasel said. “Some of them may not get the opportunity to do this again.”

The 2015 World Juniors will likely enter the history books as the third-best attended ever behind Calgary and Edmonton in 2012 and Ottawa in 2009 with an expected total attendance of approximately 370,000 and an expected average of over 12,300 fans per game.

There was a discrepancy though with 14,000 spectators in average coming to the games in Toronto and significantly less in Montreal, especially in games Team Canada didn’t play in. Therefore, journalists speculated whether it should be stuck to the plan to have the 2017 World Juniors at the same venues with reversed roles, meaning Team Canada playing the preliminary round in Toronto and having the other group and most of the final round in Montreal.

Fasel answered to the figures: “Toronto and Montreal are the two great hockey cities in the world where you can feel hockey. The expectations in Montreal were a bit higher (than the numbers) and we have to do a debriefing and see if we go like that in 2017, but we will find a way to increase the numbers. The numbers are not bad but the expectations were maybe a little bit high.”