By finishing 1st in the Norwegian Ligaen's regular season, the Stavanger Oilers are headed to the Champions Hockey League for the third straight year. “That is very important for the club,” says head coach Petter Thoresen.

by Tobias Eiken

An away win over Valerenga Oslo secured a second straight league championship for the Stavanger Oilers, with one game to go in the season. Although winning five Norwegian Ligaen championships the last six years, the Oilers have had more trouble winning the league. For all the dominance in the playoffs there has often been a dry spell in the league that would end up costing them the title. 

And so it looked this year as well as what looked like an unassailable lead suddenly shrunk to only a couple of points with four losses in a six-game span. But as the media and neutrals were salivating over the prospect of a potential league-decider in the final game between the Oilers and second-place Lorenskog, the Oilers snapped out of their funk and proceeded to win the next three games, scoring 18 goals and only allowing 1, making the final game meaningless.

As the Norwegian qualifiers for the CHL are the regular season and playoff winners, the Oilers can now go into the playoffs with a little less pressure with qualification in the bag. Coach Petter Thoresen said to Oilers.no after the league was secured: “We have now qualified for the CHL. That is very important for the club. Now we can go into the playoffs without feeling like we have a knife to our throats. At the same time it’s no secret that our ambition is to win the playoffs as well. We want to take 'the Double' this year again.” 

This marked the final regular season game for Thoresen as the Oilers head coach. After the playoffs he will take over as the national team's coach. If the Oilers make the finals this year, they will have done so in every season in his seven-year reign. Only one of those previous six has been lost. His assistant the whole tenure, Pal Gulbrandsen, will now be handed the reins and lead the Oilers in next season's Champions League.

In the Oilers' first two seasons in the Champions League they certainly left a mark as they won four of their six group games in 2014–15 only to lose top spot and qualification on goal difference to Tappara Tampere.  In 2015–16 they won two of the four games and won their group ahead of Ocelari Trinec and KalPa Kuopio, but lost to Eisbaren Berlin in the Round of 32 after playing their only poor game of their two year Champions League participation in Berlin.

When asked how important Champions League participation is to the Oilers, GM Pal Haukali Higson had this to say: “Participation in the CHL is very important to us. We get to test ourselves against the best teams in Europe and it gives us a benchmark for the work we do. Playing in Europe is also a big inspiration for the whole organization and our fans.”

On what the club had taken with them from the two first seasons of CHL play: “First and foremost, that we can compete with most teams in Europe. We meet our opponents with respect, but know we can play with anybody. It gives us confidence and the belief that we can win games against opponents that are considered better than us. At the same time we see there are areas were we need to improve and that helps us develop our work and training methods.”

The Stavanger Oilers will begin defence of their Norwegian title on Friday, 11 March, when they open the quarter-finals against the Manglerud Star.