SKA Arena in St. Petersburg, Russia – the largest hockey arena in the world by seating capacity – was damaged by fire in June and will remain closed through the 2024-25 season, The Moscow Times and Finnish media outlet Iltalehti both reported this week.
The arena, which just opened last December and is home to KHL club SKA St. Peterburg, has a capacity of 21,542. Before its opening, the largest was Montreal’s Centre Bell, which holds 21,273.
“On the night of June 9th, there was a fire in the bowl of the sports complex, the arena of which is about 225 square meters,” LX, an X (Twitter) account seemingly dedicated to fires in Russia, reported on June 11. “The preliminary reason is a wiring fault. The Italian-made advertising media surface caught fire. A minor part of the thermal insulation coating of the ice arena, part of the stands and the hockey board (partially) were damaged.”
The Times article included an official statement from SKA St. Petersburg, which said, “According to experts, given the size of the SKA Arena and the complexity of its fire safety systems, it will take a long time to eliminate the shortcomings and deficiencies.”
The project to build the world’s largest hockey venue was conceived by Gennadi Timchenko, who is known to be a close friend of Vladimir Putin, the Times reported. Construction began in 2020 on the site of the demolished St. Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex, which included the Jubilee Sports Palace – the city’s premier hockey venue from 1967 until 2000, when the 12,300-seat Ice Palace opened.
The arena was supposed to open in October 2022 and be the primary venue of the 2023 IIHF World Championship, which Russia was to host. However, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine resulted in Russia being suspended from participating in international hockey and the 2023 World Championship being re-assigned to Finland and Latvia. Additionally, cost overruns and missed deadlines resulted in the arena's official opening being delayed more than a year.
During the 2024-25 KHL season, SKA St. Petersburg will return to play its home games in the Ice Palace.