Good news for Kosice ice-hockey

We have really good news for Kosice ice-hockey, the Kosice hockey players and of course also for the Kosice hockey fans. The Sponsors' Evening last week was an opportunity for hockey club officials to meet supporters of what is currently the most successful sport in this country.
This time their intention was not to find more finance for running the hockey club, but to obtain funding to enable completion of the new winter stadium. The Evening was attended by U. S. Steel Kosice President Christopher Navetta, Hockey Club Kosice President Lubomir Veme, HC Kosice Vice-president Anton Jura, Kosice City Mayor Zdenko Trebula and many other supporters of ice-hockey from the city and the region. So far 250 million SKK has been invested in the new winter stadium. For completion of the first construction phase, which will result in the stadium being brought into use, another 160 million SKK is still required.
At the end of 2003 the Kosice Arena Civic Association was established, whose task is to obtain the necessary funding, and to speed up the whole financing process, those involved have chosen an approach which has been tried and tested in West European countries and the USA, and which is now a pilot project here in Slovakia - selling long-term (25-year) leases on spectators' boxes. When complete, the stadium will have 42 boxes available, but no more than 25-30 of them will be put out to long-term lease. These are standard boxes, commonly found in stadiums around the world. Panels featuring the logos of all sponsoring companies which have leased boxes will be placed on permanent display around the new stadium.
At the Sponsors' Evening, representatives of the Kosice Arena Civic Association, Lubomir Veme and Zdenko Trebula, signed the lease documents with the new owners of the boxes, among them also USSK President Christopher Navetta

Cooperation between Company and schools

More intensive cooperation in the education and training of young people for metallurgy and heavy industry is the aim underlying a joint decision by the Secondary Technical School for Metallurgy and the Faculty of Metallurgy at the Technical University in Kosice. The common aim of both educational institutions is to prepare specialists for practical work. That means they must have foreign language capability as well as specialist skills, so that they can make successes of themselves not only here in Slovakia but elsewhere in the world as well.
"What is crucial to our interests," Ocel Vychodu was told by STSM Principal Ladislav Mako, "is how our graduates are assessed by our 'clients', and they are above all U. S. Steel Kosice and the Metallurgical Faculty. There is an interest group named Hutnik ('Smelter') functioning at our school, featuring representatives from the human resources sector of the Kosice steel mill. Its principal objective is to define the steelworks' demands and requirements in terms of people's qualifications, and in this context to continually reform the profile of our graduates with regard to practical work. On the basis of indications from U. S. Steel Kosice, we have adapted several of our syllables, and we are working together to develop solutions."

Olympiad final decided by penalty shoot-out

Cermel Elementary School was the venue on Tuesday, February 10th for the two deciding matches for the final placings in the USSK Winter Olympiada ice-hockey tournament. The match for 3rd and 4th places was a clash between the losing teams from the semifinals, the Management and Steel Plant teams, and this was followed by the final match featuring the players from the Cold Strip Mill and the Blast Furnaces division. In the final game, last year's U. S. Steel Kosice ice-hockey champions, the Blast Furnaces team, managed a perfect repeat performance in the form of victory and winning the Olympic gold medals and a valuable trophy. The Steel Plant team were the happy winners of third place and the bronze medals. The skiing races at Jahodna on Saturday rounded off this year's USSK Winter Olympiada.