European Club Competition is ready for the next step

The upcoming European Trophy tournament will be the fourth annual competition between hockey Europe’s strongest clubs. The 32 clubs’ efforts to promote the idea of European club competition has received lots of media and fan attention as well as interest from other clubs, national leagues and federations.

All the hype surrounding European Trophy has evolved into a broader initiative, with the goal of launching an even bigger tournament for the 2014/15 season. The clubs will own the majority share of the tournament. A big positive news is that the International Ice Hockey Federation and the Leagues will take a minority share, and make the tournament officially sanctioned by the highest body of international ice hockey.

"European Trophy has shown that there’s a bright future for European club competition, and we’re excited to have the IIHF, national federations, national leagues and the other Elite clubs on board. Our next step is to inform all the European Trophy clubs about the upcoming process during our meeting in Prague on June 17th and 18th. We’ll get back to the fans and media with more information throughout this process, but our main focus right now is the 2013 European Trophy", says European Trophy tournament director Bo Lennartsson.

"We have strong commitments from the clubs and I’m excited to be an important and strong part of this unique process. We’ve come such a long ways since we started playing the Nordic Trophy in 2006 and European Trophy in 2010," says Timo Everi, member of the board of directors of the European Trophy.