Tipsport Arena (Prague)
| Tipsport Arena | |
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| Tipsport Arena in Prague (August 2013) | |
| Earlier names | |
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Sportovní hala ČSTV v PKOJF (1962–1999) |
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| Data | |
| place | Za Elektrárnou 419/1 170 00 Prague , Prague 7 , Czech Republic
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| Coordinates | 50 ° 6 '24.6 " N , 14 ° 25' 58.3" E |
| owner | City of Prague |
| start of building | 1952 |
| opening | March 7, 1962 |
| surface |
Concrete ice surface parquet |
| capacity | 14,331 seats (of which 11,950 seats) |
| playing area | 60 × 29 m (ice hockey) |
| Societies) | |
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| Events | |
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The Tipsport Arena is a multi-purpose hall in the Holešovice district of the Czech capital Prague . It is mainly used for ice hockey , but also for concerts . The hall, which was opened in 1962, was the home ground of HC Sparta Prague from its inauguration until 2015 .
history
In order to be able to organize trade fairs , the so-called Strojnický palác was built in 1907 next to the exhibition area from 1891 in Stromovka Park . This palace housed exhibitions until 1947 , which then took place at the Brno Exhibition Center . In the following years the Prague area stood empty, on December 2nd, 1952 the Czechoslovak government decided to build a sports area on the former exhibition center. The work was interrupted due to financial utilization from 1954 to 1958, the building in 1962. was completed in this case arose in the former nave of the exhibition palace the ice of the new stadium, which the official name Sportovní hala ČSTV v PKOJF wore colloquially but only hala Sportovní , so sports hall , was called.
The hall was opened on March 7, 1962 with a figure skating revue , on March 14 the world figure skating championships took place here. The ice hockey club HC Sparta Prague then moved in as a subtenant. 18,500 people, that was the initial capacity, saw the Czechoslovak national team beat the USSR 4-3 on December 23, 1962 .
In 1972, 1978, 1985 and most recently in 1992 the Sportovní hala hosted the World Ice Hockey Championship games . In the late 1960s, capacity dropped to 14,080 when standing was converted to seating. After the Velvet Revolution, the city left the hall to Sparta Prague for the next 30 years. The capacity for ice hockey games fell to 12,950 spectators in the regular seating and standing areas. There has been standing room (around 1,000 each) for around four years now, exclusively in the fan blocks for the visiting and home teams, which are located behind the two goals. According to official information (HC Sparta homepage), 1381 places in the VIP area must be added to the specified places. The total capacity of the hall for ice hockey games is officially 14,331 places.
However, the information here is quite inconsistent. On the HC Sparta website, two play-off finals of the 2006/07 season on April 8 and April 9, 2007 against HC Pardubice with an official audience of 14,500 are listed as sold out. At the last final game of that season on April 14, 2007, the official number of spectators in the hall, which was again described as sold out, was only 14,000. In fact, numerous seats at the four corners of the hall remained empty at all of the games mentioned, so that it can be assumed that, for safety reasons or because of the severely restricted view of these seats, not all theoretically available seats will be sold.
One innovation in the hall, which is no longer up to date, was the installation of a large video cube over the playing field in 2000. Since then, some improvements have been made in the area of catering and sanitary facilities. Despite certain deficiencies, the hall has remained extremely popular with HC Sparta fans.
In 1999 the stadium was renamed the Paegas Arena through sponsorship of the mobile network operator Paegas . When Deutsche Telekom took over the consortium behind Paegas in 2002, the name of the company changed to T-Mobile , and that of the ice rink to T-Mobile Arena . After the contract with T-Mobile expired in March 2008, the hall was temporarily called Arena HC Sparta and later Tesla Arena . In December 2011 the betting company Tipsport took over the naming rights to the arena.
The arena was not only used for home games of HC Sparta Prague, but also for other events such as music concerts or parties. In this case the capacity is 10,500 spectators.
Web links
- tipsportarena-praha.cz: Official website (Czech)
- hcsparta.cz: information about the hall on the website of HC Sparta Prague (Czech)
- hcsparta.cz: history of the hall (Czech)