A further 250 seats for Germany’s opening match of the 2017 IIHF World Championship have been made available ©IIHF

A further 250 seats for co-hosts Germany’s opening match of the 2017 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) men's World Championship have been made available today as organisers enter the next phase of ticket sales for the event.

Germany’s clash with the United States, bronze medallists last year, is due to be held at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne on May 5.

The Organising Committee claim they expect matches involving the German side to sell out quickly.

They are also scheduled to go up against Russia, Sweden, Slovakia, Latvia, Denmark and Italy in Group A of the event, which is being jointly hosted by French capital Paris, a candidate city for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The match against the US is already anticipated to be a sell-out, with 18,500 fans due to be in attendance when the co-hosts get their bid for glory up and running.

Day passes for the encounter with the American team have gone on sale today and will be available until they are sold out.

Tickets for a number of Germany’s other matches have also sold well, organisers have confirmed, with 3,000 remaining for the clash with Russia on May 8.

Around 4,500 tickets are left for the German side’s contest with Italy on May 13, and the IIHF have claimed individual seats for the co-host’s matches will be snapped up quickly when they are released in the spring of next year.

The Lanxess Arena in Cologne is one of two venues due to host matches at the 2017 IIHF World Championship ©Getty Images
The Lanxess Arena in Cologne is one of two venues due to host matches at the 2017 IIHF World Championship ©Getty Images

France and Germany - two nations who have endured a huge rivalry both in a historic and a sporting sense - will come together to host games at Cologne’s Lanxess Arena and the recently refurbished AccorHotels Arena in Paris.

The group phase and quarter-final games will be shared between the two host cities, while the final stages will be in Cologne.

The two venues offer a total of 886,000 tickets for the 64 games, an Ice Hockey World Championship record.

The tournament begins on May 5, with preliminary round action coming to a close on May 16.

Bronze and gold medal games take place in the German city on May 21.

Group B in Paris includes world number one Canada, Finland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belarus, Norway, France and Slovenia.

Thirty-four games will be played in Cologne with Paris hosting 30 games, including two quarter-finals.

The cities of Cologne and Paris are interlinked by the Thalys bullet train, with a trip between both taking just over three hours.