Saturday, January 21, 2012

Rink Review: Tipsport Arena in Prague

A guest commentary by Andrew Thompson






Prague's Tipsport Arena, also frequently referred to by its original name Sportovní hala, is a classic hockey barn! As modern, multi-purpose arenas continue to open up around Central Europe, going toe-to-toe with the NHL's contemporary generation of facilities, Tipsport Arena's venerable retro-charm makes it all the more appealing! The building benefits a lot from its functionalist design and generally is rather representative of modernist 1950s European architecture. Even though the stadium didn´t open until 1962, work on it already started in 1952. Only a four year construction hiatus from 1954 to 1958 - typical for such projects during the communist era - ended up pushing the inauguration into the next decade. Despite of that, many of the building´s structural features, both exterior and interior, actually are quite aesthetically pleasing, especially for any architecturally-minded eye! The west and south portal lend the arena a sense of place, while the large vaulted roof seems reminiscent of an airfield hangar.



 


As far as the simple practicality of watching a contemporary hockey game goes, Tipsport Arena delivers! While it doesn't feature all the bells and whistles that a modern entertainment venue would (such as Slavia Praha's o2 Arena across town in Praha-Libeň), Tipsport still sports a recently installed video cube hanging from the rafters and a more than suitable, loud sound system to lend atmosphere to any contest. Season ticket holders and VIP fat cats are accommodated in a spruced-up section featuring new club seating, a handful of luxury boxes and a separate restaurant, where beer is served in a glass, rather than a plastic cup! Nevertheless, at Tipsport Arena, the game and not the gizmos take center stage! While the stadium is not old enough to join the ranks of the NHL's iconic shacks like the old Boston Garden (pronounce it the "Gahdin", like a true Bostonian), the Montreal Forum or that well known building on 60 Carlton Street in Toronto, it still has plenty of history and lore for Czech standards. The 1972, 1978, 1985 and 1992 ice hockey world championships all took place at this rink, including Czechoslovak gold medal victories in '72 and '85! A dynamic statue in front of the west portal still marks these events.




The arena's concourses are compact and cavernous, yet even when the house is full, crowd circulation is fluid. Catering and concessions are dominated by a selection of different Czech sausages, all of them served with bread, spicy mustard, and plenty of grease! (The tasty Budvar tap beer, however, makes it easy to wash all of that down and feel fully refreshed!) 





The superb quality of the beer has actually always been one of the key selling points to watching a sporting event at a Czech venue, especially when compared to the lackluster kind of watered-down, over-prized drizzle that is often served at other sports arenas around the world. For those craving a taste of North American grub while watching a Sparta Praha game, KFC recently moved in and openend shop in the south stands!

As with most 1950s/1960s hockey stadiums, Tipsport Arena also has some of the common layout drawbacks that are representative for the mid-century era and therefore features the obligatory set of obstructed view seats! Most of this seating is diagonally aligned behind the goals. Yet because the house rarely reaches its capacity of around 14 000 spectators (a Sparta - Slavia derby normally drawing something over 10 000), fans do not really need to deal with being stuck in those sections. Once in the building, it's easy to freely move around the different stands.




In recent years, the home team HC Sparta Praha has gone all-out in adapting the Greek theme for its team identity, hence the paraphernalia is quite similar to that of Michigan State University, where the simple font "S", a stuffed mascot in warrior gear and the Spartan helmet also serve as the key icons for competitive spirit.

A North American sports journalist once wrote, on a tour of different European hockey arenas, that the home ice of perennial Swiss champions HC Davos (incidentally also the host venue of the annual Spengler Cup tournament every December) was IKEA's version of a hockey stadium! If one takes such a benchmark, then one would need to proclaim, that Tipsport Arena/Sportovní hala is the Bauhaus equivalent of a hockey rink!




It can only be recommended to any hockey fan to do a Prague "double-dip" and see games at both Tipsport Arena and o2 Arena on any possible rink-hopping tour of Central Europe! 

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Extraliga Round 39

Eurohockey.com's Petr Polák summarizes Round 39 of the Extraliga season, which featured three big match-ups that were all won by the road teams: Vítkovice in Třinec, Brno in Zlín, and Sparta in a duel of the two teams from Prague at O2 Arena, the home of Slavia. And after beating up on Kladno 8-2 last week, Liberec fell big in Plzeň 10-4.



The Extraliga's largest crowd of the season came to watch the Prague derby
 at O2 Arena on Sunday. Photo:  Pavel Vrtiška, hc-slavia.cz.



Slavia Praha 1 - Sparta Praha 2
Sprata had not beaten Slavia on its home ice for almost four years. Until yesterday. The key to Sparta's victory was the power play: Sparta went 2-for-4, while Slavia went 0-for-3. The game was played in front of the season's largest crowd: 11 284.

Oceláři Třinec 1 - Vítkovice 4
Last season's final series between these teams ended 4-1 in games for Třinec. The Třinec Steelers are the current league champions, but all four of this regular season's meetings with Vítkovice went to the Knights of Ostrava. Even though Třinec's Lukáš Bolf opened the scoring in the 27th minute, nine minutes later it was already 3-1 Víktovice. Bolf has been an untimely scorer for his team in recent weeks; in three of Třinec's last four games he has scored the opening goal, but they have lost them all.

Zlín 2 - Kometa Brno 3 (OT)
During this game the home team was in the lead twice, but in both cases Kometa was able to tie the score. Because it was 2-2 after three periods, the teams had to play overtime. Four minutes into the the extra period, Miroslav Holec scored the game-winner and Brno took two points in the standings.

Plzeň 1929 10 - Bílí Tygři Liberec 4
Liberec skated into this game with a four-game winning streak and coming off a huge 8-2 victory over Kladno, but Plzeň was on an even better roll; they had won 11 game a row and did not want the streak to end yet. Plzeň jumped out to a 4-2 first-period lead and then added five more goals in the second period, while Liberec scored just one. The teams traded goals in the third giving Plzeň 10 goals in a game for the first time in 19 years. The hero of the night was Radek Duda, who scored two goals and three assists, while Petr Nedvěd had two points for Liberec; the two are now tied for the league lead with 44 points.

Rytíři Kladno 3 - České Budějovice 1
Finally, after two weeks of the new year, Kladno won a game. Tomáš Knotek contributed a lot to this victory by socring two goals. České Budějovice was seeking for more luck in their shots with no big effect.

Mladá Boleslav 4 - Karlovy Vary 2
As the last-place team in the league's standings, Mladá Boleslav has had to play a relegation round against the best team of the 1.liga three years in a row. This year, all the players and the management of the club are looking for a change. But before the game against direct rival Karlovy Vary, the club was in the last position on the table again. Fortunately for Mladá Boleslav, the home team won this game and moved ahead of Karlovy Vary.

League Standings

ClubGPWOW
OLLGF:GAPts
1HC Sparta Praha39216
66122:7981
2HC Plzeň 192939216
57140:10280
3HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice39193
512131:9568
4HC Moutfield České Budějovice38203
213107:9368
5Bílí Tygři Liberec39159
114104:10064
6PSG Zlín39155
61383:9561
7HC Vítkovice Steel38154
316104:10456
8HC Oceláři Třinec39143
715110:10555
9Rytíři Kladno38152
31896:11052
10HC Kometa Brno38125
41797:10250
11HC Verva Litvínov39117
318101:12750
12HC Slavia Praha40132
52099:12248
13BK Mladá Boleslav40112
52286:12442
14HC Energie Karlovy Vary39112
422102:12441
Leading Scorers

 Player  Club  GP  G  A  Pts  +/-  PIM 
1Duda RadekPlzeň
392123442066
2Nedvěd PetrLiberec
36172744152
3Ton PetrSparta
39202343206
4Koukal PetrPardubice
381622381338
5Burger JiříVítkovice
37132538934
6Straka MartinPlzeň
39122638514
7Tenkrát PetrSparta
39172037226
8Gulaš MilanČ. Bud.
36152035640
9Hübl ViktorLitvínov
36151934426
10Kolář JanPardubice
391123341826
Standings and statistics are courtesy hokej.cz