Ice Hockey returns in Croatia

Description:

Sports promoters in August plastered 77 billboards around Zagreb with the face of an unsmiling goalie, and an announcement in capital letters: Ice hockey is back.
Croatia is fielding a competitive professional ice-hockey team, Zagreb's Medvescak Bears, for the first time in more than 20 years. Under the new ownership of four former Yugoslav-era players, the ice rink that previously drew just a few hundred fans has pulled in 6,000 or more spectators to every home game since the Sept. 15 opener. Even midweek games draw a capacity crowd.
For the four new owners, revitalizing the Medvescak team is the first step in building up a national hockey program that began to decline  in the 1990s.
ce hockey faded as a spectator sport when the team lost sponsors and funding after the wars of the '90s. Croatia didn't have the money to recruit foreign players and the country lacked a strong youth program. The quality of play declined, and fans lost interest in local games.
Now, the team's management is heavily marketing its return. Black-and-white photographs of Olympic squads from decades earlier line the ice-rink walls, and fans regularly refer to the glory days of the Yugoslav team in the 1980s. In the month leading up to the opener, Medvescak advertised on billboards, radio stations, Internet banners, street posters, leaflets and Facebook. The first game sold out in five days.

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