The original plan of the Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko was to build the largest hockey stadium in the world. This was achieved, but the enthusiasm for the new hall in St. Petersburg is already gone. The planned pride of Russian hockey is a shame, even the home club SKA St. Petersburg does not want to play in it.
Photo: Profimedia
SKA Arena, the largest hockey hall in the world.
The original intention of the Russians succeeded, the SKA Arena with a capacity of 21,542 seats is the largest hockey stand in the world, as it surpassed the previous leader, the Bell Center in Montreal, Canada, by 254 seats.
It was put into full operation in December 2023, when the KHL All-Star Game took place here. In February of this year, SKA Petrohrad hockey players moved in there, and they played the end of the regular season and the KHL elimination game in the new church. Some matches were reportedly watched by almost 24,000 spectators.
However, after eleven games, SKA announced that they are returning to their old hall for the upcoming season. The proven Ice Palace has a lower capacity of more than 9,000 spectators.
The club cited the fire that occurred at the SKA Arena in June as one of the reasons. The fire damaged the surface of the arena, one of the stands and the video projection. The cause was supposed to be bad wiring.
“Unfortunately, there was a fire there, while we discovered a number of shortcomings. We know that the arena works and we would like to play there, but under adequate technical, technological and organizational conditions.
By those organizational conditions, I mean who is responsible for what and who manages what. Business and financial matters also need to be resolved.
This is a whole series of questions that we did not have time to not only solve, but also to discuss during the download. In the coming season, we will only play in the Ice Palace.
We realize that we have to improve the hall,” said the chairman of the club’s board of directors and former head of the KHL, Alexander Medvedev, for the Russian newspaper Sport-Express.
Critics pointed to the not completely 100% condition of the arena already in December. “There were a lot of strange photos circulating on the Internet.
Where the spectators had no access, it looked all kinds of things – wires sticking out, non-functioning turnstiles, blocked emergency exits, traces of hastily completed repairs,” wrote the Russian website Championat.
Criticism was also heard from among the hockey players themselves. Several of them complained about low-quality ice and poor lighting.
The SKA Arena will therefore be empty in the coming months. Hockey will not be played there, and according to the official program, no other events are planned.
The colossal multifunctional hall was also supposed to be a spectacular venue for the 2023 World Hockey Championships, which was to be hosted by St. Petersburg. However, because of the war in Ukraine, it came to nothing.
Source: sportweb.pravda.sk
