Štvanice stadium
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Štvanice stadium is situated on Štvanice Island and is ranked among the oldest stadiums in Prague. The stadium was in its heyday in the first half of the 20th Century, but has been in decline since 1961.
[edit] Early days
The stadium was built in the early 1930s and is entirely made of wood. It was the first ice-stadium with synthetic ice. On 17 January 1931, the first hockey match on the synthetic ice was played. After this, Štvanice stadium became the skating centre of Prague for 30 years and countless numbers of hockey-players and figure skaters were brought up there.
The Štvanice stadium hosted the biggest hockey matches of the day. The Czech ice hockey team won several medals at the Ice Hockey World Championships, including:
The next important date for the Stadium was 11 February 1955. The first televised hockey match was broadcast on this day.
[edit] Decline of Štvanice stadium
Since 1961 a new stadium on the fairground has hosted these major matches. Subsequently Štvanice stadium started to grow old and wasteaway. Only regional ice-hockey and public skating kept it alive. In several years the stadium had to be closed due to poor repair. As late as 1998, civil association APeX CLUB carried out repairs and Štvanice stadium was reopened. It was open for public skating and hockey-players returned.
But it was not a happy ending. In Summer 2002 Prague was hit by catastrophic flooding and a big part of the stadium was damaged. Sadly, not even The Czech Federation of Ice-hockey remembered to help. Only thanks to APeX CLUB people could again skate in the stadium in October 2002.
Today Štvanice stadium is a national cultural monument and it is protected by the state. But there are still some who call for it to be demolished.
