Tappara Tampere, EV Zug and Djurgarden Stockholm are three founding members of the Champions Hockey League who each participated last year. All three teams now look to improve on their first-year showing, so it promises to be a highly competitve group and the general managers from the three clubs seem to agree. 

Writing Staff

We asked representatives from each club in the Champions Hockey League a few questions about the competiton. Here are the responses from the general managers of the teams in Group 2: Tappara Tampere, EV Zug and Djurgarden Stockholm. 

What does the CHL mean to you and your club?

Mikko Leinonen (general manager, Tappara Tampere): “It means a lot for us as a whole organization that the players have a chance to play international games. We already got used to playing different games with different teams, so there are many positives about the CHL.”

Reto Klay (general manager, EV Zug): “It means a lot. It’s a different competition, playing against good teams all over Europe. It’s a challenge to have more than one competition in our season. I think the product that started last year is headed in the right direction. My feeling is it helps. It means more games for the players and it gives us the opportunity to play more high-level games.” 

Joakim Eriksson (general manager, Djurgarden Stockholm): “It means a lot. We’re one of the founding teams and we’re really looking forward to what comes in the future. We will grow even stronger as a tournament and hopefully, in the future, we will reach the same kind of status or level that the football Champions League has.”

What do you think of your opponents in the group?

Leinonen (Tappara): “This year looks really good. We have good teams in the group – against Djurgarden we've had to play many times and we also have a new team, EV Zug from Switzerland. And they have a good team too, so I think we have three good teams in our group. We will see what happens when we start playing the games.”

Klay (Zug): “I am pretty excited. I always like to play good teams. We actually played against a Finnish team last year and they were really tough to play. It’s a good challenge to play against so many good teams. I am happy.”

Eriksson (Djurgarden): “I’m satisfied with the draw. We’ve got some really quality teams in our group – Zug in Switzerland and Tampere in Finland – so they’re very competitive teams and, because of that, it’s good to come back to Sweden and have those games at home against them.” 

What are your goals for the CHL this year?

Leinonen (Tappara): “We hope to get in the final for sure, because that’s the only goal we can have. You have to aim high and and then you see how successful you can be.”

Klay (Zug): “It’s actually more about going step by step. It just about surviving the group stage. That must be the first goal and afterwards we can go to the knockout stage. We will take it game by game and see how far we go.”

Eriksson (Djurgarden): “Our goal is always to win. No matter what we’re playing, that’s always our goal and focus. But we realize that’s going to be a really big challenge for us.”