SC Bern secured their place in the CHL's Round of 16 and set a new competition attendance record in the process to see them draw 3-3 with Red Bull Salzburg. Read more in Gamecentre.

by Luke Fisher, with contribution from Simon Stalder

Up 4-1 from last week's game, Bern started brightly and took the lead with 5:22 played. Martin Pluss was picked out by Hischier from behind the net and slapped the puck home to put his side one up on the night, and four on aggregate. Salzburg, to their credit, didn't give up despite the deficit and were level in the game just under ten minutes later – Peter Hochkofler was the willing recipient of a bad pass from Berns Untersander, and the Red Bulls' forward slotted home to make it one each.

Bern again started the better team in the middle period, Tristan Scherwey on the breakaway putting the home side back ahead with 22:40 played. It got worse for the Red Bulls not two minutes later as well when Ryan Lasch wrested home from the circle to make it 3-1 on the night.

However Salzburg, now down by five on aggregate, again refused to lay down and duly got themselves back in the game at 26:55 through Tommy Raffl. The visitors then shocked the CHL record crowd 13,669 of in Bern as they tied the game – another mistake by the home defence gave the puck to Ryan Duncan who scored shorthanded at 35:34.

When asked how long he believed they had a chance to win, Raffl said, “Till the end obviously. I think that’s why we play this game. And we had the chances to turn the series around. Sadly, some things happened that shouldn’t have and Bern is the well-deserved winner.” 

The final period saw half chances for both teams, and as the clock ran down Salzburg even pulled netminder Bernhard Starkbaum to try and win the game on the night but to no avail. Bern held on the for 3-3 tie and go through 7-4 on aggregate.

“It was clear to us, even during the pre-season, that we want to go as far as possible in this year’s CHL,” said Bern defenceman Beat Gerber. Looking ahead to the next round against JYP Jyvaskyla, he said, “We need to prepare well for the next step. I don’t know the team we’re playing against but I’m sure our Finnish coach will know and he will give us the right preparation.” 

"It was a different situation, leading by three form last week's game, but I think we did a good job defensively and were the better team across both games," Bern's Finnish coach, Kari Jalonen, said after the game. "It doesn't matter who we play in the next round. Okay, travelling to Finland, we'll know a bit more about them, but we have to prepare ourselves and switch back to focusing on our own league. I know the players, club, and town so we'll have a lot of information about JYP."

"I was really happy with the way we played – we generated a lot of scoring chances and tonight we worked hard over 60 minutes to give ourselves a chance but it just wan't meant to be," reflected Salzburg head coach Greg Poss. "We're disappointed, we wanted to keep going and play different teams from Europe but now we have to focus on our league."