Red Bull Salzburg has once again been crowned best team in Austria and champion of the multi-state International Central European Hockey League (ICEHL). On Friday, Salzburg won its fourth straight title with a 4-0 home-ice win over KAC Klagenfurt to complete a four-game sweep of the finals.
It is the club’s 11th league title and 13th Austrian national championship since 2001.
“It’s simply unbelievable,” said veteran Salzburg and Austrian national team captain Thomas Raffl. “But we have such good character in the team. When there are 22 professionals who give everything for the team, that leads to success. But we’ve also worked very hard for it. And then good things happen.”
Salzburg finished second to Klagenfurt in the regular season and then steamrolled through the playoffs, going 12-1 against Fehérvár AV19, the Bolzano Foxes and Klagenfurt, losing only a semifinal game in overtime to Bolzano.
In a rematch of last year’s finals, Salzburg, Austria’s most successful team in the 21st Century against Klagenfurt, the country’s most successful team historically with 32 titles dating back to 1934. Klagenfurt had home-ice advantage but Salzburg took that away with a 2-1 overtime win in Game 1 and never looked back.
In addition to Raffl, the Red Bulls are led offensively by Austrian national team mainstays Benjamin Nissner and Peter Schneider and Canadian former NHLers Ryan Murphy and Scott Kosmachuk. Finn Atte Tolvanen, a graduate of Northern Michigan University, is the team’s starting goalie.
Salzburg, Klagenfurt and Italian-based Bolzano all qualify for next season’s Champions Hockey League. Last season, Salzburg advanced to the quarterfinals of the pan-European club championship.
The ICEHL is a 13-team multi-national league in Central Europe that grew out of the Austrian Hockey League, and the highest-ranked Austrian team at season’s end is still crowned national champion. Eight of its teams are based in Austria, three in Italy, and one each in Hungary and Slovenia. In the past, clubs from Czechia, Slovakia and Croatia have also competed in the league.
