Bunch of bums. Source.
Ajoie visit Biasca in Ticino to play the Ticino Rockets.
Ticino Rockets serve as the farm team for the National League's two Ticino clubs, Lugano and Ambrì-Piotta. See here for a club history.
Ticino's head coach is Éric Landry, who played for the Flames and the Habs and has coached the Gatineau Olympiques.
[Ticino 2 - 6 Ajoie.]
Anders Eldebrink played for Kloten in the glory days of the Nineties.
It's the Swiss Cup, Round of 16. Our guys Ajoie visit Kloten. These two met up in the second round of the 2015-16 cup, and Kloten won 4 - 3.
Kloten have won this cup once. (See below.) They are five-time National League champions (1966-67, 1992-93, 1993-94, 1994-95 and 1995-96). At present they play in the second-tier Swiss League, having suffered relegation in 2018. Their colours are blue, red and white. From 2000 till 2016 they were known as Kloten Flyers.
Kloten is a town in Zurich Canton with a population of about 20,000. The club's rink, Swiss Arena, holds 7,800 spectators.
Per Hånberg is head coach of EHC Kloten.
Kloten/Ajoie is the only game in this round to feature two Swiss League teams.
Lugano's game against Oberthurgau in the previous round has not yet been played as Lugano are under quarantine.
Final score: Kloten 1 - 3 Ajoie.
EHC Kloten in the Swiss Cup:
59-60 R3 Kloten 2 - 6 Ambrì-Piotta
60-61 R1 Kloten 8 - 4 Veltheim
R2 Kloten 1 - 12 ZSC
61-62 R2 Thun 2 - 6 Kloten
R3 Kloten L - W Fleurier
62-63 R2 Rapperswil-Jona 6 - 8 Kloten
R3 Sion 4 - 9 Kloten
R4 Kloten 5 - 0 Fleurier
QF Kloten 5 - 9 Neuchâtel Sports Young Sprinters
63-64 R3 Kloten 8 - 4 Basel
QF Kloten 4 - 3 Neuchâtel Sports Young Sprinters
SF ZSC 10 - 6 Kloten
64-65 R4 Lugano 5 - 0 Kloten
65-66 R4 Kloten 2 - 4 ZSC
71-72 R2 Kloten 9 - 6 Uzwil
Uzwil 10 - 5 Kloten
14-15 R1 Dübendorf 1 - 6 Kloten
R2 Bienne 1 - 2 Kloten
QF Ambrì-Piotta 2 - 4 Kloten
SF Genève-Servette 1 - 2 Kloten
F Berne 3 - 1 Kloten
15-16 R1 Thurgau 1 - 5 Kloten
R2 Ajoie 3 - 4 Kloten
QF Bienne 2 - 3 Kloten
SF Lausanne 4 - 3 Kloten
16-17 R1 Frauenfeld 1 - 4 Kloten
R2 Bienne 3 - 4 Kloten
QF Langenthal 2 - 3 Kloten
SF Kloten 3 - 2 Lausanne
F Kloten 5 - 2 Genève-Servette
17-18 R1 Thurgau 2 - 6 Kloten
R2 Kloten 2 - 4 Zug
18-19 R1 Rheintal 0 - 13 Kloten
R2 Kloten 4 - 3 Bienne
QF Kloten 3 - 4 Zug
19-20 R1 Kloten 0 - 3 Rapperswil-Jona
20-21 R1 Thurgau 1 - 3 Kloten
Source: French Wikipedia. Usually German Wikipedia is best for European hockey, but for Switzerland it's French.
Ajoie defeated GCK Lions 10 - 1 on January 19th, 2016. Source.
HC Ajoie come from Porrentruy in the canton of Jura in the northeastern corner of Switzerland. The club was founded in 1973. They've reached the top Swiss league twice, in 1988-89 and 1992-93, and have had spells in the third tier, but have spent all of the 21st century in tier two. Ajoie won the NLB in 2016, but it did not result in promotion. This spring they enjoyed their greatest moment when they were come-from-behind winners of the Swiss Cup.
They play at Patinoire de Voyeboeuf, which can hold 4,600 fans. Their colours are black and yellow. Their crest features a griffin against the coat of arms of Jura.
Head coach of Ajoie is Gary Sheehan, a Canadian who has been coaching in Switzerland since 1991.
Today Ajoie visit GCK Lions, the farm team of ZSC Lions of the National League.
Despite having fallen into the maw of ZSC, GCK have a history of their own. They were formed in 1934 as Grasshopper Club Zürich, and won both the Swiss league title and the Swiss Cup in 1966. In the year 2000 they merged with SC Küsnacht, who were themselves formed in 1934, and moved into the Küsnacht arena. Küsnacht is a suburb of Zürich on the eastern shore of Lake Zürich. Carl Jung lived there, and he would be the one to ask about the underlying significance of lions and griffins.
[GCK Lions 0 - 5 Ajoie.]
Ajoie beat Davos to win the Swiss Cup back in February. Source.
It's the 18th edition of the Swiss Cup, a national tournament involving teams from the five top tiers of Swiss ice hockey. This cup started in the 1950s, but has not been held every year or even every decade, and it was just recently announced that the 2020-21 cup will be the last for the foreseeable future, owing to fixture congestion caused mainly by the Champions Hockey League. So let's follow it while we still have a chance.
The German name for this cup is Schweizer Cup, the French is Coupe de Suisse, and the Italian Coppa Svizzera.
Round One starts today with 32 teams: 12 are from the top tier (the National League), 10 from the second tier (the Swiss League), 6 from the third tier (the MySports League), 3 from the fourth (the misnamed First League), and 1 from the fifth (the similarly misnamed Second League).
Let's follow last year's surprise winner HC Ajoie, who play in the second-tier Swiss League.
Their game today is against HCV Martigny, who play in the MySports League. HCV Martigny was formed in 2018 through the merger of HC Sion-Nendaz 4 Vallées and HC Martigny Red Ice. Their rink, Forum d'Octodure, holds 3,520 spectators. Martigny is in the canton of Valais about where the Rhône takes a turn north toward Lake Geneva.
The early rounds of this cup are regionalized. Both Ajoie and Martigny are in the French-speaking part of Switzerland called Romandie, Ajoie in the north and Martigny in the south.
Ajoie knocked HC Red Ice out of the 2015-16 cup.
[Martigny 1 - 4 Ajoie.]
Forssa Palloseura last played in the top division in 1977. Source.
KHL: Admiral Vladivostok have dropped out, leaving the league with 23 clubs. Four years ago there were 29 teams. Kunlun Red Star have relocated to Moscow for the duration of the pandemic.
Sweden: Because of the premature end of last season there is no movement of clubs between the top two leagues. However, for financial reasons Karlskrona HK has been dropped to the third tier and Väsby IK has been promoted.
Finland: No change in the Liiga. The Mestis expands by two, admitting Keikko-Espoo and Forssan Palloseura.
Germany: No change in the DEL or DEL2. Füchse Duisburg and Mosquitos Essen have dropped out of the Oberliga Nord. EG Diez-Limburg, Hammer Eisbären, and Herforder EV have joined. ERC Sontfofen have left the Oberliga Süd, and HC Landsberg and EHF Passau Black Hawks have joined.
Czech Republic: Českých Budějovicích are out of the Extraliga, Rytíři Kladno are in.
Slovakia: No change.
Hungary: No change.
Switzerland: No change.
Austria: The Erste Bank Eishockey Liga has undergone a name change to ICE Hockey League. Orli Znojmo leaves and Bratislava Capitals joins.
Norway: No change.
Britain: The Elite Ice Hockey League plans to return in December with the same ten clubs as last year.
France: Our guys Les Jokers de Cergy-Pontoise join Ligue Magnus, increasing it to twelve teams.
In 2019 Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays jumped from the collapsed CWHL to the Russian Women's Hockey League, and on March 11th they won the playoffs. Source.
Other completed championships:
European Women's Hockey League: KMH Budapest
National championships that have been cancelled:
Usports, NCAA, Finland, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France
National championships that have been postponed:
SDHL, NWHL, Italy
2019-20 Vanke Rays roster:
Player Nationality 2018-19 club
Siye He Chinese
Kimberley Newell Canadian Vanke Rays
Noora Räty Finnish Vanke Rays
Megan Bozek American Markham Thunder
Taylor Flaherty American
Zhixin Liu Chinese Vanke Rays
Xueting Qi Chinese
Kaitlin Tse Canadian
Shuang Zhang Chinese
Leah Lum Canadian Vanke Rays
Alex Carpenter American Vanke Rays
Emily Costales Canadian
Cui Huo Chinese
Claudia Kepler American HV71
Rebekah Kolstad American
Yufei Liu Chinese
Rachel Llanes American Vanke Rays
Amy Menke American Minnesota Whitecaps
Hannah Miller Canadian Vanke Rays
Yunlin Pi Chinese
Liang Tang Chinese
Jessica Wong Canadian Vanke Rays
Maddie Woo American Vanke Rays
Liying Yang Chinese
Melanie Jue American Vanke Rays
Source: Eurohockey.com
Vortex won Group B last year. Source.
The 39th All Japan Women's Ice Hockey Championship, which was to have taken place March 12th to 15th, has been cancelled due to the COVID19 virus.
The eight participants were: Daishin, Obihiro Cranes Ladies, Douru Kensetsu Peregrin, Kushiro Bears, Takashi Clinic Mikage Gretz, Toyota Cygnus, Seibu Princess Rabbits and Vortex Sapporo.
I'm posting this instead of deleting it because I didn't want to waste this picture of Sapporo Vortex's sharp uniform.
The 2020 IIHF Women's World Hockey Championship, which would have begun in Nova Scotia in a couple of weeks, is also cancelled. The Japanese women's team were in Group B and were scheduled to play their games in Truro.
Former Ottawa Senator Christoph Schubert finished his playing career with Hamburg Crocodiles. Source.
Canadians currently playing for Hamburg: Chase Witala and Jordan Draper.
Tilburg have one more game against Leipzig and then the regular season is done and the playoffs are next. I'll write one blog post for each playoff series that Tilburg are in.
[Crocodiles win 3 - 1.]
[Tilburg Trappers were scheduled to meet Selber Wölfe, the eighth-place finisher in the Oberliga Süd, in the eighth-finals, but the playoffs were cancelled on March 11 because of the coronavirus.]
Hannover Scorpions, German Champions 2010. Source.
Tilburg Trappers host Hannover Scorpions, the only club in the 2019-20 Oberliga Nord to have been Deutscher Meister.
Hannover Scorpions currently have four Canadians on their roster: Kevin Miller, Julien Pelletier, Mike Robinson and Mario Valery-Trabucco.
The top-tier Deutsche Eishockey Liga has been relatively free from churn over the past decade. It has had the same number of clubs (14) since 2010 and has operated as a closed shop without relegation or promotion except for cases of financial insolvency. Hannover Scorpions dropped out in 2012, and were replaced by Schwenninger Wild Wings. Hamburg Freezers left in 2016 to be replaced by Fischtown Pinguins.
DEL2 started in 2013 with 12 teams, expanded to 14 the next year, and has maintained that number each year since. Nine of the original 12 are still in it.
The Oberliga is in pretty constant flux. Oberliga Ost, Nord and West were amalgamated in 2015 to make a division of sixteen clubs called Oberliga Nord. Since then that number has risen to eighteen and then been whittled down to twelve.
[Scorpions win 5 - 0.]
Hockey on the frozen football field, Saint Mary's, 1980-81. Source.