On the roof of World Championship venue LANXESS arena Franz Reindl, President of the German Ice Hockey Association (DEB) and the Organizing Committee, handed the 23-year-old Cologne native the official ambassador certificate.

Timo Horn became Cologne’s number-one goalie with 19. Since then he has played 155 games for the three-time German champion. His biggest international success came last summer at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro where he won silver with the German selection.

Beside his duties for 1. FC Koln he will now also campaign for a successful 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in his city. “At the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro I saw myself how big the significance of a big tournament is in the life of an athlete. To experience something like that in your own country must be an incredible feeling. As an ambassador of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship I want to do my small part that the tournament in my hometown of Cologne will become a big success to be remembered for a long time by everybody involved,” the goalie said on the roof of Germany’s biggest and most visited multifunctional arena.

Like many people from Cologne Timo Horn has a solid relationship to the sport of ice hockey: “Already when I was in kindergarten I regularly visited the home games of Kolner Haie at the LANXESS arena and I always root for them even when I’m far away.”

Franz Reindl, who serves in an IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Organizing Committee at LANXESS arena for the third time, is glad about Horn’s commitment: “I’m very happy to see that a young and successful footballer is that honoured to be named ambassador of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. It’s great to see how athletes stand together for German sport. Timo fits greatly to Felix Neureuther and Angelique Kerber, who have previously been named ambassadors, and it also speaks for charisma of ice hockey here in Cologne.”