Vaillant Arena

Geschichte

Vaillant Arena is an arena in Davos, Switzerland. It is primarily used for ice hockey and is the home arena of HC Davos. It holds 7,080 people, of which 3,280 are seated. Every year the Spengler Cup is played in this arena.The arena is scheduled to undergo renovation at the conclusion of the 2017-18 season to upgrade most of the stands and the concourse. The seating capacity will not be increased and the total cost should be around CHF 21 million.Speed skatingThe open natural ice rink beside the arena, Eisstadion Davos, was in the past the venue for many international speed skating events and many speed skating world records have been broken here. It still continues to be used for Swiss Championships in speed skating. It is an outdoor, natural, ice rink and lies 1,560 metres above sea level.For the high velocities achieved in speed skating, high altitudes are favorable due to lower air drag, and since the ice conditions produced were also often very favorable, many World Records were set in Davos, beginning with Peder Østlund who set four records in 1898. The arena also had a reputation for variable conditions, the sun or warm winds could play havoc with ice conditions throughout a championship.BandyBandy has also been played at the Eisstadion. Apart from local games, the 1913 European Bandy Championships was held at the site and a four nation bandy tournament was held here in 2014.