According to Infront Sports & Media, the exclusive media and marketing partner of the IIHF for its World Championships, this year’s edition generated a record of more than 8,300 hours of television coverage.

This is almost double that of five years ago.

Infront has also revealed there was a total television audience of 1.297 billion for the event, which was held in German city Cologne and France’s capital Paris from May 5 to 21.

This tops the 2016 record by 36 million and is approximately a 30 per cent increase on five years prior.

Overall, the competition aired in 166 territories across the globe with Germany’s television channel SPORT1 attracting a peak audience of 2.4 million to watch their team win a decisive game against Latvia to reach the quarter-finals.

This was the highest-ever number for an ice hockey game broadcast by SPORT1.

"The IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship continues to go from strength to strength," IIHF President René Fasel said.

"Each year we seem to top the performance of the last.

"That is testimony to the fast, thrilling nature of this sport and competition, as well as to the successful efforts to bring the event to new audiences."

The 2017 IIHF World Championship, which saw Sweden triumph in the final at the expense of Canada, also attracted huge numbers of on-site spectators to the arenas hosting the 64 matches.

The six games held on May 13 set an attendance record for a single day, with a total of 82,897 on-site for the games.

The Lanxess Arena in Cologne sold out an unparalleled three times that day, hosting a total of 54,699 spectators.

At the same time, the three games played that day in Paris’ AccorHotels Arena drew 28,198 fans.

Over the entire course of the competition, more than 686,000 spectators attended the games.

That constitutes the second-best result in the competition’s history, surpassed only by the 2015 tournament held in the Czech Republic.

Of the 10 highest on-site audiences for the tournament, seven have been recorded in the past 10 years.

Furthermore, the AccorHotels Arena in Paris attracted the highest-ever spectator figures measured in a second arena of the IIHF World Championship.

"France and Germany were delighted to come together to host the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship," Franz Reindl, President of the 2017 Organising Committee, said.

"The unprecedented success of the event we jointly held is a source of huge pride."

Using the IIHF official website as a hub for its digital campaigns, Infront and the IIHF introduced a number of innovations in an attempt to allow viewers more control of footage and increased engagement.

Video views across YouTube, Twitter and Facebook exceeded 29 million, while the IIHF social media engagement topped at 4.1 million people.

All major sponsors of the competition have extended their partnership with the event, including Czech automobile manufacturer Škoda, which did so by another four years from 2018 until 2021.

In 2007, Škoda was first recognised as the longest main sponsor of a World Championship.

This year, the Guinness World Record was renewed for the 25-year commitment with Infront and the IIHF World Championship.

"2017 will go down as yet another record-breaking year for the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship," Bruno Marty, executive director of Winter Sports at Infront, said.

"That our sponsors remain just as passionate for future editions shows just what a valuable and important competition this has become."

Next year’s IIHF World Championship is scheduled to take place in Denmark with Copenhagen and Herning playing host from May 4 to 20.