Champions Hockey League - Group H

ERC Ingolstadt

Founded in 1964, ERC Ingolstadt worked their way up the german regional leagues, winning various regional championships before their trip ended in the second highest league and had to step down in 1987 due to financial problems. But just a few years later they found themselves back in the 2. Bundesliga in 1998. In the season 2001 Ingolstadt advanced to the DEL, the highest league as the winner of the final, Bremerhaven, couldn't fulfill the requirements for a participation in the DEL.

The following years proved to be successful, reaching the play offs and advancing to the quarterfinals numerous times. I would take until last season for the Ingolstadt Team to finally win the german championship. As the winner, they would have qualified for the CHL anyway, but since Ingolstadt is a shareholder of the CHL they automatically participate.

SaiPa Lappeenranta

One of the younger clubs in the Finnish SM-Liiga, SaiPa hasn't won a championship yet since being founded in 1948. 3 third places are the highest accolades so far. Last year the team of coach Pekka Tirkkonen reached the Semifinals which gave them the qualification for this years Champions Hockey League. The Club has provided a number of NHL-calibre players such as Antti Aalto, Jussi Markkanen, Petteri Nokelainen, Petri Skriko, Jussi Timonen, Vesa Viitakoski or Niklas Bäckström.

HC Vitkovice Steel Ostrava

For Swiss Fans, Vitkovice may sound familiar, yes, you're right. They played at the Spengler Cup in 2011 and 2012, finishing 3rd. They won the Czechoslovakian Championship twice (1952, 1981). Last season ended in the quarter final, just like the two previous seasons. Vitkovice had a number of players leave per the end of last season. Patrik Valcak (to Krakow), Karol Sloboda (to Togliatti), Michal Barinka (to Sparta Praha) or Tomas Kudelka (to Lahti) were just a few. On the other hand, Daniel Dolejs from Brod, Patrik Zdrahal from Rimouski Oceanic or Peter Ceresnak went the other way and will try to strengthen Vitkovice's defense.

EV Zug

The Team of the central part of Switzerland hasn't had a great last season. A club that has the aspiration to win a championship can't be happy when finishing the season on 10th place out of 12 teams. For this reason, a new head coach was hired, a name well known in the hockey scene. Harold Kreis who used to coach HC Lugaon, ZSC Lions winning titles with both teams. He previously coached the Mannheim Adler but his contract was terminated just before the end of 2014. His job will be to create a team that works together. Zug has been one of the most active teams on the transfer market. Dario Bürgler, Björn Christen, Johann Morant, Daniel Sondell, Robin Grossmann, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Calle Andersson and Tobias Stephan all get their pay checks from EVZ this season. On the other hand, numerous players were transferred to other clubs to free space on the roster.

Zug's first an only championship win cam in 1998 when HC Davos was beaten in a 6 game series. Leading figures of the team were goalie Ronnie Rüeger, defender Patrick Sutter and André Künzi and Bill McDougall, Wes Walz, Misko Antisin, André Rötheli and Jörg Eberle as forwards. This years team definitely has the potential to reach the knock-out stage of the Champions Hockey League and the NLA.

My predictions:

If Zug can max out their potential a qualification for the next round should be possible. Second team could be SaiPa but Vitkovice seems to have an experienced team.

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