Unfazed by the glass doors of the Palais Omnisports Marseille Grand Est, a handful of children, hockey sticks in hand and using a plastic ball for a puck, mimicked their favorite players. On Wednesday, January 21, the Spartiates, Marseille’s local ice hockey team, hosted the Ducs d’Angers in a match of France’s top ice hockey league, Ligue Magnus.
Nearly 4,000 people filled the stands of France’s largest ice rink – slightly below the season’s average attendance of around 4,900. Later that night, Olympique de Marseille was scheduled to play Liverpool at the Stade-Vélodrome in a UEFA Champions League match. “After football, we are the city’s second biggest sport, both in terms of attendance and level,” said Jonathan Zwikel, the general manager of the Spartiates.
From the major cities of Nice, Bordeaux and now Marseille, ice hockey has spread across France, no longer limited to its traditional mountain strongholds – such as the ski resort towns of Morzine and Chamonix in Alps – or its established powerhouses of Rouen (north) and Grenoble (southeast). The makeup of the men’s national team, which began its Olympic tournament Thursday, February 12, in Milan, Italy, against Switzerland, highlights this transformation: Twelve of the 25 players are from major urban areas.
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