page_title: Håkons Hall
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Håkons Hall / Construction
caption_attribution_description: Stampesletta with Håkons Hall (front) and Kristins Hall (back) to the right. Lillehammer and Gudbrandsdalslåen in the background
context_page_description: Håkons Hall, sometimes anglicized as Håkon Hall and Haakons Hall, is an arena located at Stampesletta in Lillehammer, Norway. With a spectator capacity of 11,500 people, it is the largest handball and ice hockey venue in the country. Håkons Hall is regularly used for handball and ice hockey tournaments, concerts, exhibitions, conferences and banquets. The venue is owned by Lillehammer Municipality via the subsidiary Lillehammer Olympiapark, which owns all the Olympic venues in Lillehammer. The Norwegian Olympic Museum is located in the arena, which is located next to the smaller Eidsiva Arena.
  The hall opened on 1 February 1993 having cost 238 million Norwegian krone. It was built to host the ice hockey tournament at the 1994 Winter Olympics, and has since hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1994 Winter Paralympics, the 1999 IIHF World Championship in ice hockey, the World Women's Handball Championship in 1993 and 1999, the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004, the 2008 European Men's Handball Championship and the 2010 European Women's Handball Championship. Lillehammer IK has occasionally played ice hockey matches at the arena.
context_section_description: Lillehammer received its first indoor ice rink in 1988, with the opening of Kristins Hall. That same year, the town was awarded the 1994 Winter Olympics, which required the construction of a larger venue for the Olympic ice hockey matches. The naming of the arena was decided by the Lillehammer Municipal Council in October 1988, as part of a broader branding policy, based on the history of the Birkebeiner. Håkons Hall is named for Haakon Haakonarson, a medieval king of Norway who as a child was transported across by mountains by skiers. Kristin and Håkon became the mascots for the Olympics, and the twin arenas at Stampesletta were named accordingly. Protests were made in Bergen, as local patriots felt it was not suitable that a sports venue had such a similar name to Håkonshallen, a medieval hall in Bergen.
  In June 1989, the municipal council voted to locate most of the Lillehammer venues in the Stampesletta area, and to place Håkons Hall adjacent to Kristins Hall. This was controversial and many councilors voted for the original decentralized plan, with the venues spread out through the municipality. The application for the Olympics called for building up to five ice venues in Lillehammer. For post-Olympic use, Kristins Hall was designated as the main ice rink for Lillehammer, while it was planned that Håkons Hall would be used for larger events. On 8 December 1989, the International Olympic Committee rejected two demands from the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for the ability to host a minimum of 12,000 spectators in the larger ice hockey venue and for a women's ice hockey tournament.
  The decision about the location of the ice hockey venues was made on 10 October 1990. Håkons Hall would be the main venue, supplemented by Gjøvik Olympic Cavern Hall in Gjøvik. The proposal to have figure skating at Håkons Hall was rejected, and instead it was to be held at Hamar Olympic Amphitheatre in Hamar. In 1990, the Norwegian Cycling Federation recommended Håkons Hall as one of several possible places to build a velodrome for the Union Cycliste Internationale's  1993 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. The same year, Håkons Hall was proposed to supplement Oslo Spektrum as a venue for a proposed pan-European professional ice hockey league. Construction was approved by the Parliament of Norway in April 1990, including funding. Original design plans called for a simple hangar-like design, and original cost estimates were for NOK 191 million. However, in March 1991, the municipal council decided to increase spending on the venue to make it more aesthetic. The re-design also included telescopic stands and better acoustics, to allow for more flexible use after the Olympics.
  The main contractor was Veidekke and construction cost NOK 238 million. Grants were given from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate and SINTEF for energy economization. The work on the hall was concluded on 1 February 1993. It was the 27th indoor ice hockey rink in Norway.
caption: Stampesletta with Håkons Hall to the front at the right, and Eidsiva Arena behind it
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A590 IS", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image DateTime": "2009:06:11 16:01:11", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Tag 0x1001": "3264", "Image Tag 0x1002": "2448", "Image ExifOffset": "444", "Image XPTitle": "[76, 0, 105, 0, 108, 0, 108, 0, 101, 0, 104, 0, 97, 0, 109, 0, 109, 0, 101, 0, 114, 0, 0, 0]", "Image XPComment": "[67, 0, 101, 0, 110, 0, 116, 0, 114, 0, 111, 0, 32, 0, 100, 0, 101, 0, 32, 0, 115, 0, 97, 0, 108, 0, 116, 0, 111, 0, 115, 0, 32, 0, 100, 0, 101, 0, 32, 0, 115, 0, 107, 0, 105, 0, 0, 0]", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image ImageUniqueID": "0f9844cc873cc51977bc9af89c48f88c", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3457", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6772", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:06:11 16:01:11", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:06:11 16:01:11", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "277/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "11/4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "43520/3", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2448000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}