13. May 2025
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IIHF World Championships 2025 at Avicii Arena Stockholm

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Avicii Arena Stockholm at IIHF World Championshiip 2025

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Avicii Arena Stockholm at IIHF World Championshiip 2025
3.9

Rating

 3.9/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Iconic building and inside
  • Good traffic connections

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Food issues
  • Limited toilets

Traveling to the 2025 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships was a rather spontaneous idea. The key reason was that Team Canada called one of my all-time favorites, Marc-Andre Fleury, for their roster. Thus, my trip did not go to Herning in Denmark, where the German team played, but to Stockholm. Here is my review of the international sports event, based on the first Saturday match day on 10th May 2025.

The rating does only allow for the venue itself. Including the fan zone experience, my review would be more positive.

 

Trip Report

There is also a trip report about the whole weekend:

Marc-Andre Fleury made me do it – the (weird) Story of a Weekend in May 25

 

Avicii Arena – Location & Transport

Avicii Arena is located in the South of Stockholm. The area around the venue hosts multiple other sports and event venue. The most famous one are the soccer stadium 3Arena in the South and the Hovet, which is also used for ice hockey, in the North. Avicii Arena also hosted several NHL matches, including the one between my Pittsburgh Penguins and the Nashville Predators in November 2025. For visitors, there is a hotel, the Quality Hotel Globe, which has direct access to the iconic venue. The Globen Shopping mall is very handy for visitors as well. It is located on the West of Avicii Arena.

Due to the wide range of venues, you can go to Avicii Arena by car. there is parking available, which is located outside the Stockholm city toll zone. However, the most straight-forward way to get there is taking one Southern branch of the green metro line Tunnelbanen, T19, to Globen. The stadion also features bus connections and tram line 30 connections. The metro station Gullmarsplan is located North of the event area. It features access to all three green metro line branches, which may be handy during events.

Avicii Arena – The Venue

Avicii Arena, officially opened as Stockholm Globe Arena in 1989, comes with a capacity for ice hockey games of 14,119 spectators. The iconic spherical building has been the largest of its kind in the world, until The Sphere opened in Las Vegas. It is the home venue of the Swedish ice hockey national team. It hosted the Ice Hockey World Championship five times (incl. 2025) and is a two time host of the World Floorball Championships. I visited the venue just two weeks before my ice hockey trip, reporting from the Swedish Floorball Finals. I love to walk around a venue and explore all the services in there. You cannot really say that the Avicii Arena strikes in there. It is a rather purposive venue with little potential of being overwhelmingly enjoyable, like pictures of previous events or similar. The aisles feel suitably wide. However, around the food and service places, Avicii Arena tends being rather narrow.

Despite being over 35 years old, the inside of the Globen, Avicii Arena is still impressing. The spherical structure feels impressing and the rather steep architecture feels massive. A sports event in a full arena leads to a great atmosphere. I also really liked the seating in the arena. The seats are padded and the width and distance leads to quite comfortable seating, not only in the center ice seat I had for the match. The view from the seats is mostly good. There are no cupholders or similar equipment at the seats. The video screen is modern and offers a good level of comfort. As the match I visited was the first of the day, I had quite some time to explore Avicii Arena from different angles and positions and felt that the level of seat comfort is really superior in average compared to other venues I have been in.

There are, of course, some premium seating options, which are likely a rather hidden and thus less important feature of an arena. I will take you with me to one of these options after the November 2025 NHL match.

 

Ticketing Situation

I typically write quite a bit about ticketing in regards of venues, which are majorly used by some clubs. In regards of regular season matches, no Stockholm sports club is using Avicii Arena as their home soil. Some local derbies in the Swedish ice hockey leagues are played in the city’s largest indoor place, though. For the IIHF Men’s World Cup, the ticket situation, of course, varied significantly with the two teams playing. I no issue finding good tickets just a few days before the Slovenia vs. Canada match – this might have been significantly more challenging for matches of the home team. At Ice Hockey World Championships, there are day and match tickets, so that you have to leave the arena after every match. Tickets are typically mobile tickets, for which you need the AXS or Ticketmaster app.

 

IIHF World Championships at Avicii Arena – Atmosphere

Ice Hockey World Championships are extremely friendly party events celebrating the sports together. Canada thereby typically does not reach their potential of fans in Europe. Despite bringing players like Sidney Crosby to Europe, the Canadian fans were rather calm during the match. Slovenia had a small, but very intense fan block. Matches with other teams like Sweden, Finland, Austria or Latvia in 2025 will definitely lead to much louder and intense feelings during the tournament.

I will also share some atmospheric pictures my trip report about the whole weekend.

 

Avicii Arena – Merchandise & Food

Merchandise at the IIHF Men’s Worlds is traditionally a tricky topic. At least at the venue, you typically don’t get original jerseys. The reason for that, as far as I know, are licensing ones. There were multiple merch booths inside the arena. Of course, there is also merchandise of the event itself. One thing which made me trouble is that quite some of them was not available in XXL, some even not in XL. Especially in ice hockey events, I typically never had issues even with 3X or 4X sizes. The prices were reasonable.

I felt that the number of food outlets was rather small at Avicii Arena. There is not too much variety. Namely, there are burgers (including vegan options), kebab. The offering is more or less equivalent at all stands. Apart from that there are a lot of sweets (a typical Swedish thing…) and drinks (of course). The vendor removes the caps in case of bottles drinks. I was really hungry before the match – and at least at this first one of the day, they did not have any of the options. Instead, they just had one option which was not on the menu screens at all – körv med bröt (“Sausage with Bread” – or simply a hot dog). That felt extremely limited to me.

 

Avicii Arena – Services

There are comparably many toilets around the concourse of Avicii Area. However, these are very small, so that there were rather long lines, especially during intermissions. The official match program was available by a QR code. There is no deposit system for cups, but you are asked to bring them back to collectors. The staff was overall friendly. However, at arena opening a staff member shouted at the obviously international visitors in Swedish, which I felt being extremely rude. The situation was also rather useless, as the fans were asked to step a few steps back before entering the arena – despite having distance to the arena doors already.

At major events in Sweden in general, bags of any kind are forbidden inside venues. For the ice hockey event, this included the Avicii Arena, but also the Fan Zone. Right opposite the arena, there was a luggage storage, located in the building which also hosts the shopping mall. The charge per day (11:00 to 23:00) was 100 SEK.

 

Avicii Arena – Fan Zone

Not included in my rating, but definitely a highlight of the 2025 IIHF Men’s Worlds in Stockholm was the Fan Zone. It is located at a large square North of the Hovet, which is a smaller venue North of Avicii Arena. The area is really huge and has space for several thousand people. The main square in the middle features many tables and benches, at which ice hockey fans of all countries partied together. There is also a stage, which was first taken by a DJ and later even by a live cover band. Especially as the hosts Sweden had the match before, there were many fans and had a great party together. You do not need a ticket to enter the Fan Zone. Apart from the bag policy, you are screened by security before you enter, though.

Of course, there is a lot of entertainment on that ground as well. The Fan Zone offers event sponsors to present them. Quite some of them offer games at which you can win prizes of any kind. The most prominent are of course the paper ice hockey helmets provided by a Czech car manufacturer, which are already a tradition at the annual event. A grocery discount gave away free smoothie shots and fruit, which was really nice as well.

 

Merch and Food

The Stockholm Fan Zone also features the city’s largest Men’s Worlds merchandise store. The access is restricted by the security – not that much as the large tent becomes too crowded, but rather as the lines at the cashier became too long. Also in that place, I struggled finding clothing in large sizes, which is a pity. Of course, you can also take your personal plush version of the quirky tournament mascot Beaty with you.

Apart from a large tend with typical food, there is a group of food trucks at the East of the square. These featured Pakistani, Greek, Mexican, Ethiopian and some more cuisines and were a really nice addition – at a reasonable price. I feel that Stockholm gave me the only chicken biryani I will ever have at a major ice hockey event of my life. The large food tent also features drinks in pitchers and reduced prices at selected times. Of course, there are also toilets as well as a space if you want to cool down and have a less noisy and more relaxing time.

 

 

IIHF World Championships at Avicii Arena – My View

Not just due to the people, Ice Hockey World Championships almost guarantee having a good time. A big factor are the people and the community. But Stockholm did a great job in regards of the entertainment around the matches. The Fan Zone is exceptional.

However, Avicii Arena itself does have some downsides. The two key points of critics from my side are the food situation and the limited toilets. Thus, the intermissions of the game became quite short. Regarding the age of Avicii Arena, I feel that the arena management overall did a good job.

 

Flyctory.com about Ice Hockey

Here are all ice hockey postings on Flyctory.com:

 

Travel Postings About Sweden

Here are all my Travel postings related to Sweden:

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