Photos: Roman coliseum in Croatia hosts outdoor hockey games

In perhaps the coolest setting for an outdoor hockey game yet (and probably ever), a Roman coliseum in Croatia was host to a hockey rink.

By Brian Stubits

Sep 16, 2012 at 2:39 pm ET • 1 min read

A look at the ice before the games began. (Jutarnji List)

Just because the NHL entered into a lockout over the weekend doesn't mean there wasn't some pretty noteworthy hockey being played elsewhere around the globe. Such hockey hotbeds as Pula Croatia and a recreation of the Roman Colosseum were busy hosting their own games.

OK, so the only way a coliseum in Croatia qualifies as a hockey hotbed is the fact is that it's hot there. But you get the point: They played an outdoor game in a 2,000-year-old coliseum. Now, how cool is that?

It was the Arena Ice Fever 2012, and the first match featured a 3-2 win for the Slovenian team Olimpija over Croatia's champions of Medvescak. But the star of the game was very clearly the setting. How do you beat a game in a coliseum?

From the Croatian Times:

The Arena Ice Fever Pula MMXII is the first time anyone has ever attempted to put a professional ice rink inside an amphitheatre but there were no technical difficulties as it was a perfect fit, say organisers.

He added: "It was almost as if the Romans took it into account when they built the place 2,000 years ago, the proportions of the amphitheatre fit perfectly to the proportions of a modern ice hockey rink."

Here is a photo gallery of the ice before the game, including some of how the ice came together in the coliseum. Below is another shot of the ice during the first game of the battles in Pula.

Pretty awesome.