CHL (Champions Hockey League) 2014!

[Puupi]

http://www.championshockeyleague.net/

Starts tonight! Very interesting, 44 teams from 11 countries - a very similar concept to the football champions league.

Remains to be seen if there are huge differences between the team skill levels from different countries... I bet there will be some big numbers on some occasions.

[Jackmoves]

Should have the russians included tbh. it's the best European Hockey League afterall. I'm not too clued in European hockey outside of our domestic league but the teams in Frölundas group doesn't sound terrifying. The swiss have a decent league I think?

Good iniative though.

Also hell yeah. ;P

Frölunda has throughout the years been Sweden’s best drawing club in attendance, regularly gathering crowds of 10.000 plus, setting a Swedish record of 11.688 per game in 2007-08. Frölunda prides itself with developing players through its youth academy and they are the European club which has the most players drafted and signed by NHL clubs. The most famous are Henrik Lundqvist.

[Puupi]

The Swiss league might be the best league in Europe (outside of Russia). The Swiss teams are full of foreign players with big paychecks, it's a money-league.

KHL teams might join CHL later on, but they didn't want to join it this year.

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Hmm after the first period between Kalpa (Kuopio, Finland) vs Sparta Prague (Prague, Czech) I'm amazed. Kalpa finished last in the Finnish league last season and they are totally dominating against such legendary team as Sparta Prague. Sparta barely touched the puck in the first period....Kalpa leads 2-0 and the score could have been a lot higher...

[Deleted]

I am cheering for the Swedish teams to do well since my team is not in CHL. Will probably watch the Skellefteå AIK and Djurgården game tonight!

[Puupi]

What an entertaining match that Kalpa vs Sparta Prague, 4-5 after shootout! CHL is great! Playoff hockey in August, what could be better...

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What the hell, Ocelari Trinec won SC Bern 7-0. Bern should be a top notch team o_O

[Deleted]

Djurgården is down 0-1 with 5 minutes left. Not expecting much from them since they just moved up to SHL this year. They have too many young players that need more experience playing in the highest league.

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Wow.. Beutiful goal by Djurgården to make it 1-1!

[Rennadrel]

I wonder how long before they get sued for using the acronym by the real CHL.

[Puupi]

I wonder how long before they get sued for using the acronym by the real CHL.

The 'real' CHL? Canadian Hockey League? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Hockey_League

Or Central Hockey League? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Hockey_League

I don't think those acronyms are international trademarks and can't be used by others.

A funny thing is that the real website for the league is that .net one. The game graphics in the Kalpa - Sparta Prague match showed that .net website, but the graphics in Liberec - Kärpät showed .com. That .com doesn't work, it doesn't redirect to the real site. What a fail!

[Deleted]

Pretty decent first day for Swedish teams. Växjö crushed yesterday, but then they are expected to reach the finals in SHL

[Jackmoves]

Frölunda lost, fucked up powerplay from what I read. They should have won it and I believe it was against the best team in the group, the swiss.

[Deleted]

Frölunda lost, fucked up powerplay from what I read. They should have won it and I believe it was against the best team in the group, the swiss.

Yes it was. Hard to make anything out of the first 2-3 games though. This is usually pre-season.

[Puupi]

JYP vs Red Bull Salzburg was a good game yesterday, very even and close.

TPS vs HC Bolzano was something quite different.....9-0...

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Does anyone know if there is some kind of list of the roster budgets of CHL teams? Would be nice to see some perspective with the budget differences....

[Deleted]

I was looking for a budget chart yesterday but could not find any. Would be fun to see how big of a difference it is.

[Skayaq]

How good of a team are IFK Helsinki? i saw Sonderjyske lost to them after penalty shoot.

[Puupi]

How good of a team are IFK Helsinki? i saw Sonderjyske lost to them after penalty shoot.

HIFK should be a good team. Very traditional (the oldest team in Finland, founded in 1897) Finnish team, not sure how their roster is this year though.

Finnish teams generally have very low amount of foreign players regardless of the fact that the quota for foreign players in each team was removed (it used to be 3 foreign players per team). HIFK seems to have 3 foreign players this year.

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About the budgets: I know that the budgets for Finnish teams are 1,5 - 3 million euros.

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http://forums.internationalhockey.net/showthread.php?11337-Team-budgets-around-the-world!

Found that kind of list from two years ago. Quite interesting!