On Sunday, during the bronze medal and gold medal games at the IIHF World Championship in Minsk, CHL fans voted on which of the players from clubs in the new competition performed the best in the tournament.

by Derek O'Brien

On the final day of the IIHF World Championship, visitors to the Champions Hockey League's Facebook page and Twitter followers voted for which players from CHL teams performed best in Minsk. As to be expected, there was some bias in the voting, with a large number of votes coming from fans in Sweden and Germany. There were also some invalid selections -- Martin Gerber, Pekka Rinne and Viktor Tikhonov -- players who either didn't play in this year's World Championship or are not currently members of CHL clubs.

Forwards

As Daniel Tjernström posted on Facebook: "the top 3 forwards are from the same team, Skellefteå Aik."

Indeed, that's the way the voting played out. The top three vote getters among forwards were Joakim Lindström and Oscar Möller of Sweden and Pierre-Édouard Bellemare of France, who all play for the two-time Swedish champs. Of course, it's hard to claim any kind of bias, since they were the top three scorers in the tournament among CHL players.

Their nearest competition in voting came from Thomas Oppenheimer of Germany and the Hamburg Freezers, Mads Christensen of Denmark and Eisbären Berlin, and Kaspars Daugavinš of Latvia and Genève-Servette, while Iiro Pakarinen of IFK Helsinki, Dennis Hollenstein of Switzerland and the Kloten Flyers, Alexander Weiss of Germany and Köln Haie, and Koba Jass of Latvia and Bílí Tygři Liberec also received votes.

Defencemen

On defence, another Swede, Magnus Nygren of Färjestad Karlstad, was the top vote-getter. He was followed by a pair of popular Germans -- Frank Hördler and Constantin Braun, both of Berlin -- and Alexander Bonsaksen of Norway and Vålerenga Oslo. Mathias Seger of Switzerland and ZSC Lions Zurich, Niclas Burström of Sweden and Skelleftea, and Ondřej Vitásek of the Czech Republic and Liberec also received votes.

Goaltenders

The top goaltender from the CHL was basically a two-horse race between Norwegian Steffen Søberg of Vålerenga and Italian Daniel Bellissimo of Luleå Hockey. There were compelling arguments to be made for each -- Søberg's statistics were better, while Bellissimo played a lot more minutes and faced a lot more shots on a defensively-challenged Italian team. Søberg eventually won by one vote. German Rob Zepp also received some votes from the many Eisbären fans participating.

All-CHL team at the IIHF World Championship

*Tied with Constantin Braun; championshockeyleague.net cast deciding vote.