March 1, 2018 Comments Off on That time when Skopje hosted a world tournament in ice hockey Views: 6116 Skopje, Virtual Memoirs

It’s strange when you think about it. Macedonia and Skopje are better known to the world for having some great games in handball. Several championships in handball at European and world level have been hosted in Macedonia in the past. But back in 1969, Skopje joined a European trio of cities that hosted the 36th edition of the Ice Hockey World Championships. The same tournament reportedly doubled as the 47th European ice hockey championships, too. For the needs of the games, the ice-rink under Kale was also built.

As the format for the ice hockey championships went, there were three pools (A, B and C), and each was hosted in a different city. Technically, three cities and two countries supported the games, Stockholm, Ljubljana and Skopje, or Sweden and Yugoslavia respectively. The strongest teams (pool A) confronted on the ice-rinks in Stockholm, where also the championship concluded at the end of March that year. The mid-strength teams (pool B) confronted in Ljubljana and the weakest on the ranking table (pool C) contested in Skopje, where the tournament officially opened on February 24th, 1969.

Some 16 games were played in Skopje, between Japan, Switzerland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, and Denmark. It was the Japanese that won within this tournament, claiming a spot ahead of Switzerland as the pool C runner-up. With these games, Skopje also became the southern-most city to host an Ice Hockey World Championship.

Initially, the games needed to be hosted by Czechoslovakia, however, at this point, the Soviets had invaded the country, and they declined to host. The Czechoslovak and Soviet teams eventually confronted twice on the ice-rinks within the Pool A contests. It was a big surprise that the Czechoslovak team won both times, but it was still not enough to stop the Soviets from claiming the first position for the seventh time in a row.

We also thought to induce you some Winter Olympics nostalgia – Sarajevo, host of the Games in 1984

Tags: host city Skopje, Ice Hockey World Championships 1969, Ljubljana, Stockholm, Yugoslavia