2024 Ice Hockey World Championship in Czechia: Everything you need to know

Czechia’s biggest sporting event of the year is almost upon us. The country is home to the 2024 men’s Ice Hockey World Championship: starting on May 10 and lasting over two weeks, host cities Prague and Ostrava will brace for a cumulative hundreds of thousands of hockey fans from around the globe. Here is everything you need to know about the tournament.

Teams will play games in two venues – Prague 9’s O2 Arena, which has a capacity of 17,300, and the Ostravar Aréna to the east of the country, which holds just under 10,000 people. 

The games get underway on May 10, with the final on May 26. Prague will host both the semifinals and the final.

Prague last hosted the men’s Ice Hockey World Championship in 2015.

A total of 16 teams will play, split into two groups of eight. Group A, which includes Czechia and top seed and reigning world champion Canada, will play all their matches in Prague. Group A also includes ice hockey heavyweights Finland and relative minnows Great Britain. 

Group B, which will play all its matches in Ostrava, features the U.S., Sweden, and bottom-ranked team Poland.

Czechia has won six world championships in total, the most recent being in 2010.

The Czech national squad will play seven group-stage matches between May 10 and May 21. If Czechia finishes in the top four teams of its group after all teams have played their matches, it will progress to the quarterfinals, which are played May 23.

You can find a full list of fixtures on the official International Ice Hockey Federation tournament website.

Tickets to matches in both cities are still available. You can get them from two official vendors: Ticketportal and Ticketmaster. Prices across both sites are the same.

Adult ticket prices depend very much on who is playing. Group-stage games featuring Czechia are all sold out on official and affiliated ticketing sites; they had started from CZK 1,990. However, trusted ticket exchange site Viagogo – which sells tickets at face value – still has tickets available for matches featuring Czechia.

Tickets for non-Czech games usually start at CZK 890 for “Category 3” tickets – usually in the upper tiers – and reach up to CZK 1,490 for “Category 1” tickets.

If you want to catch a game for particularly cheap, the Austria versus Great Britain clash on May 21 in Prague starts from just CZK 190, with Category 1 tickets reaching CZK 390.

The Ostravar Aréna has a very similar pricing structure, though prices for some games featuring “bigger” hockey teams – such as the U.S. or Sweden – can cost up to CZK 2,390 for Category 1 tickets.

Tickets are now available for purchase for the quarter-finals starting at CZK 2,390, the semi-finals starting at CZK 4,490, the bronze medal match from CZK 2,490, and the gold match starting at CZK 7,190.

Both the Prague and Ostrava stadia have large fan zones nearby where visitors can watch the best of the action on a big screen for completely free; no ticket is required. 

The Prague fan zone, which will be outdoors and beside the O2 Arena, is 8,400 square meters. It opens at 11 a.m. on match days (and at 2 p.m. when the O2 Arena has two games, rather than three) and closes whenever the evening match is finished.

Fans can look forward to concerts by various bands, a DJ, games, prize competitions, and food and drink options. In Prague, a draft pint of Pilsener will cost CZK 110, a 0.4-liter serving of Starpromen goes for CZK 90, and you’ll need to pay a deposit for a plastic cup, which is CZK 100. All payments are by card; cash is not accepted. 

The Ostrava Aréna fan zone, which is slightly smaller than the one in Prague and holds up to 5,000 people, features similar pricing and will also have competitions and live music. Its opening times are the same. It will also not accept cash at bars and food stalls.

ČT Sport will broadcast live all 64 matches from the championship on television and via streaming.

Organizers say that the 2015 world championship in Czechia brought over 741,000 spectators. This year, ticket sales have so far comfortably exceeded 2015 levels, and so both Prague and Ostrava will need to brace for an onslaught of hockey fans.

"We know it's tempting, but we ask everyone not to try to drive to the games at all costs. There is a risk of getting stuck in a queue and not being able to find a place to park," director of the championship's transport division Lenka Jiroutová told the press earlier. 

Jiroutová recommends taking the tram and metro to Prague’s O2 Arena, with the nearest metro stop being Českomoravská on line B (yellow), or taking tram number 8 or 25, and alighting at the Arena Libeň jih stop. All streets directly outside the O2 Arena will be closed on match days.

If visiting the O2 Arena by car, organizers recommend using park-and-ride (P+R) spots around Prague. Jiroutová suggests using the Černý Most P+R lot, as it is only five stops away from the O2 Arena. 

Visitors to Ostrava may take tram lines 2, 3, 7, 11, 12, and 19 to reach the arena. Organizers also strongly discourage attempting to drive to the arena, instead advising visitors to park at P+R spots in the area; full details can be found on the official championship website.

Both Prague and Ostrava municipalities have said they will increase the volume and frequency of local transport connections on match days.

Visitors to Prague should also bear in mind substantial tram disruption and reroutes already ongoing in the city center, as well as near Libeň due to work on the Libeň Bridge. Visitors may plan their journeys on the English-language Prague Public Transport Company (DPP) website.