How the Ritten Arena came into being

Already after the 1st World War, competitions in speed skating, curling and ice hockey were held at Lake Wolfsgrubner.
As there was a great interest in winter sports, the local politicians, on the initiative of Vitaliano Vianello, responsible of the Italian Ice Sports Federation, who had founded a sports club under the name of "Fiamma Collalbo" in 1966, decided to promote the construction of the ice ring, which could then be used for the first time in the winter of 1971/72. They found the current location of the ice ring to be a particularly suitable place. The sports building of that time was also built.

At that time, the ice hockey athletes still met at the ice rink near Zentral (today's Zentral parking lot), which was built in 1968. It was the training and venue for the games of WSV Rittner Horn. In 1978 the place was transformed into a parking lot and all the equipment was stored in the storage rooms of the swimming pool.

After a very rainy October in 1980, when the rainwater remained on the present site of the ice rink and froze overnight, some field hockey enthusiasts from Klobenstein took the initiative and, on their own initiative and at their own expense, put up the stored boards and played on the natural ice rink during the winter season.
It quickly became apparent that the pitch was ideal as an ice rink and as early as 1981/82 concrete bases were poured and new boards erected, thus setting the course for today's ice stadium.
The sports facilities including the bar were managed by Mur Egon at that time.

A few years later, the Ritten Ice Sports Promotion Cooperative was founded and, according to a concession contract with the municipality of Ritten, operated the sports facilities until 1994. The chairman at that time was Ernst Baumgartner.
After the ice sports promotion Ritten had cancelled the convention with the municipality Ritten, according to the decision of the municipality committee in June 1994 a leading committee (working group) was formed, which should push the further development of the sports zone Klobenstein.

After several months of feverishly searching for a solution for the further management, the sports association, at that time under president Siegfried Wolfsgruber, incorporated the sports zone into the sports association Ritten.
The management committee and the sports club are committed to the reconstruction works and extensions in the sports zone.

In 2004 the brand name Arena Ritten was created. In addition, the gym was built, which was subleased.

In 2009 the sports club (Sportzone) joined the Sonnenplateau Ritten and adopted its mission statement and logo.
After the Ritten Arena became bigger and bigger and the wish of the sports association was that the management of the sports facilities should be organized by an own company, the users (ice hockey, speed skating, soccer, tennis, curling and Rittner Hockey League) founded the sports cooperative Ritten in 2010. According to the concession contract, this company manages the sports facilities until today.