At the 2025 Women's Worlds press conference, IIHF Director General Matti Nurminen, IIHF Council Member Zsuzsanna Kolbenheyer, IIHF Senior Vice-President Petr Briza, and Organizing Committee General Secretary Jiri Sindler (L to R) addressed the media.
photo: PHOTO: © INTERNATIONAL ICE HOCKEY FEDERATION / ANDREA CARDIN
Prior to the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship medal games, the IIHF held a press conference at Arena Ceske Budejovice on Sunday.
Meeting the media were Matti Nurminen, the IIHF Director General; Zsuzsanna Kolbenheyer, an IIHF Council member and the Chairperson of the 2025 IIHF Women’s Worlds; Petr Briza, an IIHF Senior Vice-President and the President of the 2025 Women’s Worlds Organizing Committee; and Jiri Sindler, the General Secretary of the 2025 Women’s Worlds Organizing Committee.
The consensus was clear: Czechia has hosted one of the best-organized and supported Women’s Worlds ever, dating back to the original 1990 tournament in Ottawa, Canada. To illustrate, just 14 games in on Day Five, attendance here (56,025) surpassed the European Women’s Worlds record set in Espoo, Finland in 2019 (51,247). And the fans have kept on coming.
“Ceske Budejovice is for sure a record-breaker in Europe, and we will see after today if it will be the best-attended Women’s Worlds in the world after the final game,” said Kolbenheyer, who was Hungary’s first registered female hockey player.
The prospects for that outcome are excellent with a total attendance of 111,103 before the Finland-Czechia bronze medal game and the U.S.-Canada gold medal game. The Czech team has consistently attracted sellout crowds of 5,869, and both the U.S. and Canadian teams have averaged close to 5,000 fans per game.
“This is truly a hockey country,” said Nurminen, who praised the organizers, sponsors, volunteers, and fans alike. “You lead with passion and you lead with your hearts.” He added: “I’m quite positive that if the world record is broken today, our Canadian and American friends will do whatever it takes to break that record again! It’s nice to have some internal competition.”
For fans of statistics, Kolbenheyer also noted that this has been a superb tournament for goalies, with an impressive 13 shutouts through 27 games.
Briza offered his thanks – on behalf of the Czech Ice Hockey Federation and the Organizing Committee – for the financial and logistical support provided by the Czech government’s national sport agency, along with the region of South Bohemia, the city of Ceske Budejovice, and other stakeholders.
It enabled these Women’s Worlds to serve as a fantastic follow-up to the 2024 IIHF World Championship in Prague and Ostrava, which set a new men’s tournament attendance record (797,727).
“It was a clear goal for us to provide the same quality, same energy, same effort, and same service as last year,” said Briza, who also touted the reasonable pricing of ticket packages as a factor in the tournament’s popularity.
Beyond the top-notch TV coverage by broadcast partners TSN and Ceske televize, fans worldwide had more opportunities than ever to watch Women’s Worlds, as Kolbenheyer observed. The Women’s Worlds were broadcast in nine different countries. Games were also available for streaming on the IIHF’s popular new OTT service, IIHF.tv.
And according to Sindler, inspiring youth across South Bohemia was another major mission accomplished.
“I'm happy that we built school program that were really successful,” Sindler said. “We had here in this arena over 10,000 school kids. It wasn't only to fill the seats, but it was a kind of education to show them how friendly hockey is, how they can be motivated by a sport, and how they can spend their leisure time, be heroes in the future. So it was very important. I'm happy that they joined the program and prepared flags and costumes.”
Asked how this wide-ranging success could be repeated in other countries in the future, Nurminen said it would be important to take the learnings from Czechia’s hosting of two successful events in a row and pass them on to future hosts, while acknowledging every country has different resources.
How about the possibility of hosting the Worlds for both men and women in the same country in the same year? Some federations have already considered this option. After underlining the financial and organizational challenges, Nurminen stated: “I think it’s doable. It would be very, very challenging indeed, very detailed planning.”
It all adds up to a world of exciting possibilities for women’s hockey as we head into an Olympic year with Milano Cortina just around the corner.
Meeting the media were Matti Nurminen, the IIHF Director General; Zsuzsanna Kolbenheyer, an IIHF Council member and the Chairperson of the 2025 IIHF Women’s Worlds; Petr Briza, an IIHF Senior Vice-President and the President of the 2025 Women’s Worlds Organizing Committee; and Jiri Sindler, the General Secretary of the 2025 Women’s Worlds Organizing Committee.
The consensus was clear: Czechia has hosted one of the best-organized and supported Women’s Worlds ever, dating back to the original 1990 tournament in Ottawa, Canada. To illustrate, just 14 games in on Day Five, attendance here (56,025) surpassed the European Women’s Worlds record set in Espoo, Finland in 2019 (51,247). And the fans have kept on coming.
“Ceske Budejovice is for sure a record-breaker in Europe, and we will see after today if it will be the best-attended Women’s Worlds in the world after the final game,” said Kolbenheyer, who was Hungary’s first registered female hockey player.
The prospects for that outcome are excellent with a total attendance of 111,103 before the Finland-Czechia bronze medal game and the U.S.-Canada gold medal game. The Czech team has consistently attracted sellout crowds of 5,869, and both the U.S. and Canadian teams have averaged close to 5,000 fans per game.
“This is truly a hockey country,” said Nurminen, who praised the organizers, sponsors, volunteers, and fans alike. “You lead with passion and you lead with your hearts.” He added: “I’m quite positive that if the world record is broken today, our Canadian and American friends will do whatever it takes to break that record again! It’s nice to have some internal competition.”
For fans of statistics, Kolbenheyer also noted that this has been a superb tournament for goalies, with an impressive 13 shutouts through 27 games.
Briza offered his thanks – on behalf of the Czech Ice Hockey Federation and the Organizing Committee – for the financial and logistical support provided by the Czech government’s national sport agency, along with the region of South Bohemia, the city of Ceske Budejovice, and other stakeholders.
It enabled these Women’s Worlds to serve as a fantastic follow-up to the 2024 IIHF World Championship in Prague and Ostrava, which set a new men’s tournament attendance record (797,727).
“It was a clear goal for us to provide the same quality, same energy, same effort, and same service as last year,” said Briza, who also touted the reasonable pricing of ticket packages as a factor in the tournament’s popularity.
Beyond the top-notch TV coverage by broadcast partners TSN and Ceske televize, fans worldwide had more opportunities than ever to watch Women’s Worlds, as Kolbenheyer observed. The Women’s Worlds were broadcast in nine different countries. Games were also available for streaming on the IIHF’s popular new OTT service, IIHF.tv.
And according to Sindler, inspiring youth across South Bohemia was another major mission accomplished.
“I'm happy that we built school program that were really successful,” Sindler said. “We had here in this arena over 10,000 school kids. It wasn't only to fill the seats, but it was a kind of education to show them how friendly hockey is, how they can be motivated by a sport, and how they can spend their leisure time, be heroes in the future. So it was very important. I'm happy that they joined the program and prepared flags and costumes.”
Asked how this wide-ranging success could be repeated in other countries in the future, Nurminen said it would be important to take the learnings from Czechia’s hosting of two successful events in a row and pass them on to future hosts, while acknowledging every country has different resources.
How about the possibility of hosting the Worlds for both men and women in the same country in the same year? Some federations have already considered this option. After underlining the financial and organizational challenges, Nurminen stated: “I think it’s doable. It would be very, very challenging indeed, very detailed planning.”
It all adds up to a world of exciting possibilities for women’s hockey as we head into an Olympic year with Milano Cortina just around the corner.