St. Paul: Crashed Ice championships will be here, mayor says

It's official: Red Bull Crashed Ice is returning to St. Paul.

The city will host the World Championships from Jan. 24 to 26, the second year in a row that the intense downhill-skating competition will take place near the St. Paul Cathedral. Some 200 international racers are expected to participate.

"They are coming back," St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said Thursday, Nov. 1. "We're really excited about that. That was just such a tremendous event."

Coleman will join Team USA Coach Charlie Wasley and Team USA player Cameron Nazz at a Nov. 14 media event at the Xcel Energy Center to present details.

Sobered by the ongoing NHL hockey lockout, St. Paul officials are counting on the three-day event to pump some badly needed cash into downtown businesses and the city's sales tax coffers.

Earlier this year, the mayor's office, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and Red Bull estimated that some 75,000 to 100,000 people attended the first Crashed Ice competition. Visit Saint Paul, the convention and visitors authority, noted that the city generated an extra $100,000 in sales taxes last January, indicating that an extra $20 million was spent in the city that month.

The three-day competition flooded St. Paul's downtown and Cathedral Hill neighborhoods with visitors last January. More than 100 athletes from around the world skated and jumped down a twisting, 1,400-foot-long track full of bumps and obstacles built on the slope of Cathedral Hill.

Reported by:  TwinCities.com