
"Look. We can't all be General."
It's Spengler Cup time again. This annual invitational tournament has been going on since 1923. If you've been following this blog at all you'll have noticed that much of Europe began to play hockey around 1923. That's like ninety years ago. If you want hockey tradition it's right here.
And if you want Canadian hockey players, they're right here too. Four of the six teams in this year's Spengler Cup have Canadians.
This year's entrants are:
Davos. Host team. 15-time winners of the Spengler Cup, including last year. Currently 9th in the Swiss NLA. Two locked-out NHL All-Stars play for Davos: Rick Nash and Joe Thornton. [And they borrowed Patrick Kane from Biel.]
Fribourg-Gottéron. 3rd in the NLA. Five Canadians play for Fribourg: Christian Dubé, Simon Gamache, Shawn Heins, Joel Kwiatkowski, and locked-out NHLer David Desharnais. Fribourg last played in this tournament in 1992, when they came fifth.
Adler Mannheim. Currently 1st in the DEL. Seven Canadians play for Adler: Shawn Belle, Mike Glumac, Yanick Lehoux, Craig MacDonald, Ken Magowan, Adam Mitchell, plus Jason Pominville of the Buffalo Sabres. The team also includes three Germans who are currently locked out of their NHL rinks: Marcel Goc, Dennis Seidenberg and Jochen Hecht. Adler last appeared in the tournament in 2009, when they finished fourth. My prediction: Spengler Cup winner. [Adler are the first team to be eliminated.]
Vítkovice. 10th in the Czech Extraliga. Roster includes lockout refugees Pavel Kubina, Roman Polak and Filip Kuba. Vítkovice played in last year's Spengler tournament, and were knocked out in the semifinals.
Salavat Yulaev Ufa. 5th in the Eastern Conference of the KHL. Salavat lost the 2007 Spengler Cup final to Team Canada. They need to be out of their home rink right now as Ufa is the site of the world junior championship.
Team Canada. Eleven-time winners of the Spengler Cup, most recently 2007. Coach Doug Shedden is also coach of EV Zug, so he has some insight into the two Swiss clubs in the tournament. The team includes Jason Spezza and Michael de Zotto of Rapperswil-Jona Lakers, Jon Tavares of SC Bern, Tyler Seguin of Biel, Patrice Bergeron of Lugano, Logan Couture of Genève-Servette, and Jared Spurgeon of Langnau Tigers. Plus: Ryan Smith! Complete roster.
Format. The six teams are divided into two groups. Group A includes Fribourg-Gottéron, Vítkovice and Salavat; Group B consists of Davos, Team Canada and Adler.
Each team plays the other two in its group once. The two group winners
get a bye to the semifinals. The other four clubs play the
quarterfinals, crossing over to play a club from the other group. Quarterfinal winners meet group winners in the semifinals. The two semifinal winners meet in the final on December 31st.
I haven't found a complete Spengler Cup database yet, but the German-language wikipedia article has year-by-year standings going back to 1977. Generally, the German-language articles on European hockey are the best ones.
German clubs have won the Spengler Cup six times. Berliner SC won in 1924, 1926 and 1928. EV Füssen won in 1952 and 1964. Kölner Haie won in 1999. All three clubs still exist.
[Team Canada beat Davos 7 - 2 in the final game to take their 12th Spengler Cup.]