Hamar OL-Amfi

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Hamar OL-Amfi (Hamar Olympic Amphitheatre), also called Nordlyshallen (Polar Light Hall), is an indoor sports arena in Hamar, Norway, mostly used for ice hockey. It was built in 1992 for the 1994 Winter Olympics, and housed figure skating and short track speed skating.

It seats 6,091 people, and is the largest wooden made building in the north of Europe. The arena was built next to the old Storhamar Ishall from 1981 and the two arenas were attached together to form a sports complex. Storhamar Ishall functions as a training rink. Among the common facilities is the restaurant Iskroa, as well as dressing rooms and VIP sections.

Hamar OL-Amfi also boasts an electronic multimedia scoreboard which was installed on October 22, 2004[1].

The arena is one of two venues for the 1994 Olympics that were built in Hamar. The other arena is the long track speed skating arena Vikingskipet ("the Viking Ship").

Contents

[edit] Events during the 1994 Winter Olympics

There were six short track speed skating events during the Olympic games of 1994, as well as four figure skating events.

The figure skating event of the 1994 Olympics was probably the most dramatic and hyped competition in the history of figure skating. This was mainly because of the The Kerrigan attack, on January 6, 1994, when Olympic favourite Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed in the knee by Shane Stant, who was hired to assault her by Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and friend Shawn Eckardt.

Oksana Baiul of Ukraine won the gold medal, beating Kerrigan. After the games, it was reveiled that the Olympic organizers did not have the Ukrainan National Anthem at the arena, and a taxi was hired to drive the Ukrainan coach to his hotel, where he had a copy on the anthem on tape. Most of the spectators and the TV-audience did not notice any of this potential scandal, even though the gold medal ceremony was delayed for a few minutes[2]. Chen Lu won the bronze medal.

Alexei Urmanov of Russia won the men's gold medal, beating canadian skater Elvis Stojko.

The pairs competition was won by Ekaterina Gordeeva / Sergei Grinkov (RUS). The gold medal of the ice dance event was awarded to Oksana Grishuk / Evgeny Platov (RUS).

In October 1993 the figure skating event Piruetten was held as a pre-Olympic competition. The Piruetten was won by Nancy Kerrigan[3].

Prior to the 1993/94 season the legendary ice dancing couple Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean moved to Hamar in order to practice at the arena preparing for the Olympic Games.

[edit] Ice hockey

The arena today hosts the home games of the six time Norwegian champions Storhamar Dragons ice hockey team. The attendance record is 7,405, set in the 2004 playoffs in the first game 7 ever played in Norwegian ice hockey[4]. The Dragons administration has its offices inside the Hamar OL-Amfi.

In 1999 the IIHF World Championship was hosted by Norway. Hamar OL-Amfi was one of the venues, together with Jordal Amfi in Oslo, and Haakons Hall at Lillehammer.

The following games were played at Hamar OL-Amfi[5]:
May 1:

May 2:

May 3:

May 4:

May 5:

May 6:

May 7:

May 8:

May 9:

May 10:

[edit] Team Handball

The following games at the 1999 Women's Handball World Championship were played at the Hamar OL-Amfi:[6]
December 2, 1999

December 4, 1999

December 5, 1999

December 9, 1999
Three quarter final games

[edit] Concerts

There have also been held a number of concerts in the arena: Fats Domino gave the first concert at the arena November 25, 1992[7]. The year after it was Little Richard's turn[8]. In 2005 the popular Norwegian folk band Vamp played at the arena. The NRK orchestra (KORK) held a series of school concerts in 2006. Willie Nelson played there in May 2008, where he also sang a duet with former Norwegian Idol winner Kurt Nilsen.

[edit] TV shows

The annual Idrettsgallaen (the Norwegian Sports Galla) is broadcasted live by NRK from Hamar OL-Amfi each January and has become one of the most popular TV-programmes in Norway[9]. At the 2007 show, the alpine skier Kjetil André Aamodt somewhat surprisingly announced his retirement after having received the Norwegian Athlete of the year award, following his Olympic gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

[edit] Other events

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.dragons.no/content.asp?menuItem=0&docID=14379&docDetail=on&docType=A Multimediakube på plass i Hamar OL-Amfi
  2. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E2D6163AF935A15751C0A962958260
  3. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE4DC1131F937A15752C1A965958260&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/L/Longman,%20Jere
  4. ^ http://www.dragons.no/statistikk/content.asp?menuItem=11&docID=12480&elmID=9145
  5. ^ http://www.vg.no/sport/ishockey/vm99/kampene.hbs
  6. ^ http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=2032643
  7. ^ http://www.chuckberry.de/tour1992.htm#Fats%20Domino
  8. ^ http://www.chuckberry.de/tour1993.htm#Little%20Richard
  9. ^ http://www.kampanje.com/medier/article108163.ece
  10. ^ http://www.agility-wc2007.no/en/