Host Aalborg Panthers warms up before a Continental Cup game.
photo: Kenneth Brandborg
The 24th winner of the IIHF Continental Cup will be crowned this week at the final tournament in Aalborg, Denmark.
Due to the suspension from participation of clubs from Russia and Belarus, it will be three teams who will battle for the winners’ plate: Kazakh champion Saryarka Karaganda, Danish host Aalborg Pirates as well as Cracovia Krakow from Poland.
The teams will play one game per day starting with Cracovia Krakow vs. Saryarka Karaganda. In the following days host Aalborg will play Cracovia and Saryarka respectively. All games will be streamed live by nordjyske.dk.
Due to the suspension from participation of clubs from Russia and Belarus, it will be three teams who will battle for the winners’ plate: Kazakh champion Saryarka Karaganda, Danish host Aalborg Pirates as well as Cracovia Krakow from Poland.
The teams will play one game per day starting with Cracovia Krakow vs. Saryarka Karaganda. In the following days host Aalborg will play Cracovia and Saryarka respectively. All games will be streamed live by nordjyske.dk.
Beside fighting for the winners’ plate, the teams also battle for a spot in next season’s Champions Hockey League where the Continental Cup winner is traditionally invited pending formal approval by the CHL board. The CHL announced on 3 March that Aalborg and Krakow would be eligible and the better ranked of the two teams will play in the CHL next season.
Saryarka Karaganda is the top-seeded but also the youngest club founded in 2006 by the regional authorities in the city of roughly 500,000 inhabitants. Saryarka won the Kazakh championship for the first time in 2010 and started to play in Russia’s second-tier league VHL in 2012, which they won in 2014 and 2019.
Due to border-crossing restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Kazakh top clubs returned to play in the domestic league PHL. After a second-place finish in the regular season, Saryarka beat Arlan Kokshetau 4-2 in the final series to become national champion. Currently the team from Karaganda is leading the league with a 41-7 record and has the league’s scoring leader with Nikita Anokhovski.
The Aalborg Pirates earned the right to host the event after having already organized a preliminary-round event back in November. In Danish ice hockey the city has become active in the top league as AaB in the ‘60s and after mergers and ownership changes have been known as Aalborg Pirates since 2012. Aalborg won Danish championships in 1981 and 2018 and has been playing at the Gigantium Isarena with a capacity for 5,000 fans since 2007.
Aalborg finished the cancelled 2019/2020 season in first place without a title being awarded and was second in 2021 both in the regular season and in the final series the Pirates lost to Rungsted. This season they are first with a 31-16 record. Former national team player Patrick Bjorkstrand is the team’s scoring leader and Julian Jakobsen, who recently had his Olympic debut with Denmark, leads the teams in goals.
From the three represented countries, Poland is the only that hasn’t had a Continental Cup winner yet – something Cracovia Krakow would like to change. The team comes from a big and storied sport club in Poland and has past European ice hockey experience both in the Continental Cup and the CHL and was also a host in the preliminary round.
Cracovia is a 12-time Polish champion and most recently won the league in 2017. Since then Cracovia had to settle for two silver medals and a bronze. In 2021 they lost the final to GKS Jastrzebie. This season has been worse: Cracovia was fourth in the regular season and is 3-1 behind in the quarter-final series against GKS Tychy with Game 5 scheduled for 11 March.
Game 1 on Friday will be a rematch from the preliminary round where Saryarka beat Cracovia 2-0 thanks to early goals from Stepan Grymzin and Vadim Zelenkov.
Saryarka Karaganda is the top-seeded but also the youngest club founded in 2006 by the regional authorities in the city of roughly 500,000 inhabitants. Saryarka won the Kazakh championship for the first time in 2010 and started to play in Russia’s second-tier league VHL in 2012, which they won in 2014 and 2019.
Due to border-crossing restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Kazakh top clubs returned to play in the domestic league PHL. After a second-place finish in the regular season, Saryarka beat Arlan Kokshetau 4-2 in the final series to become national champion. Currently the team from Karaganda is leading the league with a 41-7 record and has the league’s scoring leader with Nikita Anokhovski.
The Aalborg Pirates earned the right to host the event after having already organized a preliminary-round event back in November. In Danish ice hockey the city has become active in the top league as AaB in the ‘60s and after mergers and ownership changes have been known as Aalborg Pirates since 2012. Aalborg won Danish championships in 1981 and 2018 and has been playing at the Gigantium Isarena with a capacity for 5,000 fans since 2007.
Aalborg finished the cancelled 2019/2020 season in first place without a title being awarded and was second in 2021 both in the regular season and in the final series the Pirates lost to Rungsted. This season they are first with a 31-16 record. Former national team player Patrick Bjorkstrand is the team’s scoring leader and Julian Jakobsen, who recently had his Olympic debut with Denmark, leads the teams in goals.
From the three represented countries, Poland is the only that hasn’t had a Continental Cup winner yet – something Cracovia Krakow would like to change. The team comes from a big and storied sport club in Poland and has past European ice hockey experience both in the Continental Cup and the CHL and was also a host in the preliminary round.
Cracovia is a 12-time Polish champion and most recently won the league in 2017. Since then Cracovia had to settle for two silver medals and a bronze. In 2021 they lost the final to GKS Jastrzebie. This season has been worse: Cracovia was fourth in the regular season and is 3-1 behind in the quarter-final series against GKS Tychy with Game 5 scheduled for 11 March.
Game 1 on Friday will be a rematch from the preliminary round where Saryarka beat Cracovia 2-0 thanks to early goals from Stepan Grymzin and Vadim Zelenkov.