KHL newcomer Slovan Bratislava has been cleared to hold home games at the Slovnaft Arena in the city after the venue passed an inspection by the hockey league’s authorities, the team said on its website Tuesday.
In May, KHL president Alexander Medvedev announced that Slovan would join for the 2012-13 season along with Ukrainians Donbass Donetsk and Czech team Lev Prague.
"Slovnaft Arena is a great stadium and there are only few defects left to be fixed," the KHL's director on supervision and procedural issues Vadim Skoropupov was quoted as saying.
Slovan’s general manager Maros Krajci highlighted the difference between requirements posed in the Slovak Extraliga and the KHL, which included increasing the height of the protective glass around the ice and hanging flags for all seven nations of participating teams.
"We are now fixing all the shortcomings," Krajci said.
Slovan is an eight-time Slovak champion, with its last triumph coming in 2008.
Representing Czechoslovakia, the team won three Spengler Cups in a row between 1972 and 1974. 10,059-capacity Slovnaft Arena, also known as Orange Arena, was built in 1940 and reconstructed in 2009 to host matches of the 2011 IIHF World Championship.
In early May it was announced that it had hired Rostislav Cada as a new head coach, who brings with him KHL experience from working at this year's Gagarin Cup finalist Avangard Omsk.
