Ice Hockey

Kaunisto wrote:

Women's ice hockey world championship results:

1. United States
2. Canada
3. Czechia
4. Switzerland
5. Finland
6. Sweden
7. Japan
8. Germany
9. Hungary
10. France

Hungary and France are relegated to Division I A.
As this year I A tournament in China has been postponed, we don't know for a while who'll replace them next year. For the two places play Austria, China, Denmark, Norway, Slovakia and Netherlands.

Division I A was played this week and the teams promoted to next year world championship are China and Denmark.

CHL season is already well under way, although right now having a long break before decisive games. So far 2 of 16 playoff teams have been decided, one Finnish and one Swedish. So far we can be cautiously optimistic that all four Finnish teams make the playoffs.


Finnish championship series Liiga begins today, but I'm afraid I won't have great interest this year. More notable is discussion about future of the league as various changes have been suggested.
Since it started at 70's till turn of century Liiga was open, teams were able to be promoted from lower division and relegated into it. At that time Liiga was also under the national hockey association. But then it was closed and became private organization. It also started to add teams from the traditional 12. There was lots of criticism that there's no money for 14 teams in this country; now for a while Liiga has had 15 and might add one or two in near future.


The next tier league Mestis - starting also soon - has had my interest for variety of reasons for years now.
First neighbor town team was promoted there and has occasionally done well, winning title 2018.
Then a former Liiga team that went bankrupt Kiekko-Espoo aka Espoo Blues climbed back to Mestis and is currently trying to talk itself back into Liiga.
Last year a Latvian team joined Mestis in an interesting experiment, but unfortunately they didn't stay around.

The big thing this year is return of Helsinki Jokerit. A classic Liiga team since 60's, they've won several Finnish championships. But that wasn't enough, the team aimed higher and joined KHL - being arguably the most notable western team to do so. But then comes Ukraine War and everything goes haywire. Jokerit couldn't possibly continue in KHL, but neither could simply jump in Liiga (which it had left less than peacefully). After a complete reorganizing of the team Jokerit is now reborn as a Mestis team - but their intent is to return to Liiga in couple years.

In a shock and disaster Tappara fails to qualify to CHL playoffs. At least all other Finns did.

This means CHL will have a new champion this year as no other former champion made it to the league this season.

BBC wrote:

Adam Johnson: Nottingham Panthers forward dies after neck cut in Challenge Cup match

Nottingham Panthers forward Adam Johnson has died after suffering a serious cut to his neck from a skate during Saturday's Challenge Cup match.

The game against the Sheffield Steelers was stopped in the 35th minute as the 29-year-old American received emergency treatment from paramedics on the ice.

The Panthers said on Sunday they were "devastated" Johnson had died following a "freak accident".

"The club will dearly miss him and will never ever forget him," they added.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/ice-hockey/67253892

DrLeftover wrote:

BBC wrote:

Adam Johnson: Nottingham Panthers forward dies after neck cut in Challenge Cup match

Nottingham Panthers forward Adam Johnson has died after suffering a serious cut to his neck from a skate during Saturday's Challenge Cup match.

The game against the Sheffield Steelers was stopped in the 35th minute as the 29-year-old American received emergency treatment from paramedics on the ice.

The Panthers said on Sunday they were "devastated" Johnson had died following a "freak accident".

"The club will dearly miss him and will never ever forget him," they added.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/ice-hockey/67253892

This is horrifying, and I cannot imagine how the guy who got him with his skate feels right now. Just tragic all around. RIP, Adam.

CHL has been pretty interesting and surprising on the first season with new format, if not particularly good for Finns.

Yesterday quarterfinals ended and for second time in the history of league (this being 9th season) the four semifinalists are from different countries. None of them have previously reached finals: Swedish Skellefteå and Finnish Lukko have once before reached semifinals (on first two seasons) while Swiss champion Genève-Servette and Czechian Vítkovice are already further than ever before.

Spengler Cup, celebrating 100th anniversary (though played for 95th time) was appropriately won by the Swiss host HC Davos - who are now tied at 16 titles with Team Canada.

The invitational tournament has along history included varied mix of club and national teams and anything in between.

The only Finnish Spengler Cup winner (2018) KalPa was our representative again, but lost all their games (if narrowly).

In final Davos won Czech team Pardubice 5-3. This was first Spengler Cup final for Pardubice, 4th for a Czech team. They have lost them all; while Czechoslovakian teams have second most titles after Swiss, no team from modern Czechia has won the tournament andonce again failed.

CHL final will be Genève-Servette - Skellefteå. I do hope it'll be first championship for a Swiss team and not another for the Swedes.

Genève-Servette HC wins Champions Hockey League as first Swiss team. Previously there's been six Swedish champions and two Finnish.
Genève-Servette won Swedish Skellefteå AIK in final 3-2.

This means Swiss league gets four teams to next CHL season (while other five major leagues get three).

Valtteri Filppula, the only Finnish "Triple Gold Club" member (Stanley Cup and Olympic & World Championship gold) now adds CHL title to that remarkable list - only player who has won these four titles.

Apparently next season there won't be a Slovakian team in CHL, their place goes to Polish champion.
This modern system with 5 wild card spots vaguely handed out to the lesser leagues bothers me. Especially that there's no longer one spot for Continental Cup winner, that was fun because it added dozen countries who could theoretically have a team in CHL And even though that hardly happened, it gave the small leagues chance to have a second team.

For all 6 major leagues two teams from each have been decided by now (by national regular season results), plus the reigning champion as fourth Swiss team.
Additionally Sheffield Steelers has been decided as UK representative, because unlike all others UK league values regular season win higher than playoff championship.
The remaining spots are to be decided by championships of Sweden, Finland, Germany, Czech, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Norway, France and Poland.

It's again the time of year for women's world championships and my annual rant about the way they are played.
The outrageous system happens because they insist on having so many teams that some of them aren't at all competitive, but at the same time want to avoid at any cost 20-0 games. Result are these crap tournaments where it's decided some teams are better than others before the puck hits the ice. And in this case it gives top teams further advantages to stay there, for example the teams ranked 6th and down have to beat one of top 3 teams in order to finish 4th, otherwise they are 5th at best.
It's year after year the same thing - which actually kind of makes it less worse, as then the tournament also works as next year qualifying.
But that they pulled the same thing in last Olympics, that was unacceptable. (Which leads me to another rant about what sports should be in Olympics and why women's ice hockey isn't one of those.)

To add to the above, this system is likely to again, as it does more than every other year, have a match between group A 4th and 5th that has absolutely no meaning at all.
And this pointless game that could as well be cancelled is followed by the same teams playing an extremely important game, quarterfinal.

Continuing the previous rant, here's another example about how the system works.
Switzerland played 6 games in the tournament, lost 5 of them and won 1, overtime. They ranked 5th out of 10 teams.
Germany won 4 games and lost 2. They rank 6th.

To be fair, Germany was the team Switzerland won. And all the teams Switzerland lost to ranked higher and all the teams Germany won ranked lower. It's not entirely unfair. But it still shows that certain teams - basically the 4th and 5th best - are hugely favored by the system. They both only need to win one (specific) game to keep that position and advantage for next year tournament.

Next (10th) CHL season will have one team appearing for first time: Polish champion TH Unia Oświęcim.

Three of the 24 CHL 2024-25 teams are still to be decided, champions of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

Women's ice hockey world championship 2024 results:

(*=team promoted/relegated)

Top Division/Championship:

1 Canada (13th title)
2 United States
3 Finland
4 Czechia
5 Switzerland
6 Germany
7 Sweden
8 Japan
9 China*
10 Denmark* (tied best ever)

Division I A:

1 (11) Norway*
2 (12) Hungary*
3 (13) France
4 (14) Austria
5 (15) Netherlands
6 (16) South Korea* (best ever)

Division I B:

1 (17) Slovakia*
2 (18) Latvia
3 (19) Italy
4 (20) Great Britain
5 (21) Slovenia
6 (22) Poland*

Division II A:

1 (23) Kazakhstan* (worst ever)
2 (24) Spain (tied best ever)
3 (25) Mexico (tied best ever)
4 (26) Chinese Taipei (Taiwan)
5 (27) Iceland (tied best ever)
6 (28) Belgium*

Division II B:

1 (29) North Korea* (worst ever)
2 (30) Australia
3 (31) Hong Kong (best ever)
4 (32) New Zealand (worst ever)
5 (33) Turkey
6 (34) South Africa*

Division III A:

1 (35) Ukraine* (tied worst ever)
2 (36) Romania
3 (37) Lithuania
4 (38) Serbia
5 (39) Croatia (worst ever)
6 (40) Bulgaria* (worst ever and will thus be next year worse)

Division III B:

1 (41) Thailand* (first participation)
2 (42) Estonia (worst ever)
3 (43) Israel (worst ever)
4 (44) Singapore (first participation)
5 (45) Bosnia and Herzegovina (worst ever)