Qualla: 2010 IIHF World Championship: The Miracle at Mannheim and 77,803 in Gelsenkirchen

2010 IIHF World Championship: The Miracle at Mannheim and 77,803 in Gelsenkirchen: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jarba, CC BY 3.0. On 7 May 2010 in Gelsenkirchen, an ice rink was assembled inside Veltins-Arena, the home stadium of Schalke 04. Seventy-seven thousand, eight hundred and three people filed in to watch Germany open its world ice hockey championship against the United States. The previous attendance record for a hockey game, 74,554 fans at Michigan State in 2001, fell at the second intermission, when a Guinness World Records adjudicator named Christian Teufe announced over the PA system that they had not just broken the record, they had beaten it by more than three thousand. Then the host nation, an underdog at its own tournament, won the game 2-1 in overtime. Sixteen days of hockey were getting off to an unlikely start.

Image: Jarba | CC BY 3.0

2010 IIHF World Championship: The Miracle at Mannheim and 77,803 in Gelsenkirchen: Three German Cities and a Football Stadium

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hubert Berberich (HubiB), CC BY 2.5. The 2010 IIHF World Championship was Germany's first major hockey tournament since the format moved to sixteen nations, and the German federation went big. The main venues were Lanxess Arena in Cologne and SAP Arena in Mannheim, the country's two largest indoor rinks. The opener ...

Image: Hubert Berberich (HubiB) | CC BY 2.5

2010 IIHF World Championship: The Miracle at Mannheim and 77,803 in Gelsenkirchen: The Group Stage Throws Punches

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kragenfaultier, CC BY-SA 3.0. The preliminary round produced upsets in every group. Norway beat the Czech Republic in Group C, prompting an angry public statement from Jaromir Jagr about Czech stars who had skipped the tournament; the column it triggered on IIHF.com had to be taken down after IIHF president R...

Image: Kragenfaultier | CC BY-SA 3.0

2010 IIHF World Championship: The Miracle at Mannheim and 77,803 in Gelsenkirchen: The Miracle at Mannheim

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Katya gorinskaya, CC BY-SA 3.0. Germany's quarterfinal against Switzerland in Mannheim on 18 May became the tournament's signature game. The Swiss outshot the Germans 41 to 27, hit the post twice in the scoreless first period, and pressured Dennis Endras in the German net for sixty minutes. The only goal of the...

Image: Katya gorinskaya | CC BY-SA 3.0

2010 IIHF World Championship: The Miracle at Mannheim and 77,803 in Gelsenkirchen: The Final in Cologne

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kragenfaultier, CC BY-SA 3.0. The gold-medal game on 23 May at Lanxess Arena was a rematch of nothing: Russia and the Czech Republic had never met in a world championship final before, although the USSR and Czechoslovakia had been rivals across the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. The match exploded twenty seconds in whe...

Image: Kragenfaultier | CC BY-SA 3.0

2010 IIHF World Championship: The Miracle at Mannheim and 77,803 in Gelsenkirchen: The Tournament That Got Watched

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexey Chernyadyev, CC BY 3.0. The 2010 worlds drew a cumulative television audience in over 100 countries and was, at the time, the most-watched IIHF tournament in history. The opening game in Gelsenkirchen still holds the record for the largest indoor ice hockey crowd ever assembled. The host nation finished...

Image: Alexey Chernyadyev | CC BY 3.0