The official song of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship (5 till 21 May) is called "Playground" and comes from CASCADA, the global chart strikers from Germany. This was announced by the Championship's Organizing Committee today at a press conference in Cologne's LANXESS arena. CASCADA front-singer Natalie Horler, who was personally attending, was named an official ambassador of the 2017 IIHF Worlds by Franz Reindl, president of the Organizing Committee, on the same occasion.

CASCADA look back on world-wide successes like Everytime We Touch, Miracle, Evacuate The Dancefloor, San Francisco, Summer Of Love or The Rhythm Of The Night. Front-singer Natalie Horler and her team of producers and writers Yann Peifer (Yanou) and Manuel Reuter (Manian) have topped charts in more than 20 countries with their irresistible dance-pop songs. Collecting numerous awards (e.g. the World Music Award in 2007) throughout their career, they have established themselves as one of the tops European dance floor acts of the present. Albums and singles reached multiple platinum and gold status and could reach Top 10 and even No. 1 chart placements in many of the participating nations of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, including USA, tournament co-host France, Sweden and Canada. CASCADA are also tremendously popular in other Scandinavian countries and in Eastern Europe.

OC president Franz Reindl comments: "We are very happy that with CASCADA we could allure a global musical export from Germany to provide the official song for the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. With our wonderful and globally renowned official mascots Asterix & Obelix, the one great pillar of our fan entertainment program comes from France, our hosting partner country. Now, with CASCADA and their official song "Playground", the other major element of our entertainment program comes from Germany, but is equally popular in France and all other 14 participating nations of the tournament. Thus, CASCADA are a perfect match with our motto "Together for 2017". We are also very proud that our German national ice hockey team player Moritz Muller could co-star in the globally published official song video of "Playground", which is all dedicated to ice hockey.

Natalie Horler from CASCADA: "We feel honoured that CASCADA were chosen for the official song of the French-German 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. When the idea was introduced to us, we didn't have to think it much over. We are extremely excited about being able to contribute to a great atmosphere in the tournament venues and really wish that the fans will enjoy "Playground". Producing the official song video on ice, was an all-new and exciting experience for me.

As of immediately, "Playground" is available on some 250 digital music stores all over the world such as Spotify, AppleMusic, Deezer, iTunes, Amazon, Google, Napster, Rhapsody, Tencent u.. v. m. The permalink to the official video of "Playground" is: https://youtu.be/glRpL9fmxMA

CASCADA will perform live at various occasions during the 2017 IIHF WM in the venues of Cologne and Paris. Details will be announced soon.