European Leagues Thread

ForNever · Post by **ForNever** » Wed Mar 30, 2016 2:43 pm

So SaiPa's season ended on the quarter-finals as JYP from Jyväskylä beat our guys 4-2 on wins. This marks the, so far, last season of our highly appreciated Head Coach Pekka Tirkkonen, who lead the team to the playoffs four times in a row, with the results in placing of 9th, 4th, 8th and now 5th, making the quarter-finals twice and the semi-finals once. This was a huge result for a team that entirely missed the Liiga Playoffs between 1999 to 2005 and 2006 to 2012. Tirkkonen is reportedly going to coach a Swedish Hockey League team next season but those are only rumours so far.

Also our General Manager Riku Kallioniemi will step down from his place. When he was in charge of SaiPa's finances, SaiPa got a positive economical result of about 1,965 million euros over four years (this season's result is yet to be revealed), clearing the team totally of long-term debts. Kallioniemi and Tirkkonen are the main reasons SaiPa is where it is now and they are very highly valued in Lappeenranta. One thing that tells the case is the fact that SaiPa is, for the second time, going to participate in the Champions Hockey League for the 2016-17 season after being in a European league the first time ever in the 2014-15 season.

On players' account SaiPa may lose most of it top players (like usual, being a small budget team) for the next season. It is yet to be seen though if SaiPa's popular 40-year-old goalie Jussi Markkanen will continue his career or not, after partly missing the playoffs third season in a row due to injury. SaiPa's top level forward, Petteri Nokelainen, on the other hand is questioned on where and when will he continue his career since he missed most of the season fourth time in a row due to injury. He was practicing with SaiPa before the season ended though so he is still likely to continue.

In Liiga news, the league's ''Ironman'' Jan Latvala announced his retirement after his team Pelicans from Lahti was knocked out in the quarter-finals. The 43-year-old defenseman holds the record for most games played in the league by a great margin with his 1230 regular season games over 24 seasons in JYP, Jokerit and Pelicans, most of which in Pelicans (13). Latvala played a total of 13 seasons without missing one regular season game, latest being the current season. During these seasons he scored 115 goals and assisted 317, racking up 528 penalty minutes. He also played 106 playoffs games with 42 points, receiving the silver medal three times. He received Liiga's ''Gentleman of the Year'' award in 2014 and is highly appreciated among Liiga's fans, players and staff.

Thomaxius · Post by **Thomaxius** » Sat Apr 02, 2016 10:50 am

Big things happening in Sweden.. A team with long history in SHL relegated to Allsvenskan. Really makes me envy the Swedish hockey leagues, cause they basically have 2 strong leagues full of potential teams for promotion, unlike here where we currently don't have anyone in Fin-2 who a) could win a relegation series against a Liiga team and b) could afford being in Liiga.

Post by **A9L3E** » Sat Apr 02, 2016 11:28 am

Thomaxius wrote:Big things happening in Sweden.. A team with long history in SHL relegated to Allsvenskan. Really makes me envy the Swedish hockey leagues, cause they basically have 2 strong leagues full of potential teams for promotion, unlike here where we currently don't have anyone in Fin-2 who a) could win a relegation series against a Liiga team and b) could afford being in Liiga.

No wonder, since Liiga has fifteen bloody teams!

Post by **Tasku** » Sat Apr 02, 2016 1:45 pm

Yup, there's good and bad in both systems. The relegation system may be more interesting to watch, but it can also devastate a team. Fans, players, sponsors might lose interest when a team is no longer at the top. The closed system is more secure.

Thomaxius · Post by **Thomaxius** » Sat Apr 02, 2016 4:09 pm

A9L3E wrote:
Thomaxius wrote:Big things happening in Sweden.. A team with long history in SHL relegated to Allsvenskan. Really makes me envy the Swedish hockey leagues, cause they basically have 2 strong leagues full of potential teams for promotion, unlike here where we currently don't have anyone in Fin-2 who a) could win a relegation series against a Liiga team and b) could afford being in Liiga.
No wonder, since Liiga has fifteen bloody teams!

Tasku wrote:Fans, players, sponsors might lose interest when a team is no longer at the top. The closed system is more secure.

And this is why it can't be implemented in Finland. The Liiga is as fragile as it is now, and it wouldn't be able to cope if current teams would relegate and people lost more interested in it.

ForNever · Post by **ForNever** » Sun Apr 03, 2016 11:52 am

And then again Blues just went bankrupt inside a closed league. There also have been several teams in Mestis (Fin-2) which haven't been able to secure themselves financially and have had to give up their place in the league during the past years (Jokipojat, HCK, Kiekko-Laser... Kiekko-Vantaa and LeKi are/were close to going bankrupt...) What's the point of closed leagues if they're not securing what they're supposed to?

Post by **Tasku** » Sun Apr 03, 2016 12:18 pm

More secure. Not 100% secure, and not without it's limitations. Teams still have to play by the rules of modern economy, like any other enterprise.

kempelito · Post by **kempelito** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 10:53 pm

Thomaxius wrote:Big things happening in Sweden.. A team with long history in SHL relegated to Allsvenskan. Really makes me envy the Swedish hockey leagues, cause they basically have 2 strong leagues full of potential teams for promotion, unlike here where we currently don't have anyone in Fin-2 who a) could win a relegation series against a Liiga team and b) could afford being in Liiga.

Unfortunately it was my team Modo that was relegated, call it dumb optimism but I still think we can win something from it, as the last about five years have felt like they half-assed a team from the beginning to fill it up with some quality when the panic that we might get relegated strikes. This year has been like watching a reality show from time to time with players leaving mid-season for obscure reasons and all our youngsters looking to sign with different clubs in the same league, even local boys.
If things turn our the way I hope for, we will have players who actually want to be there and help us up again instead of only being there for a paycheck, even though it will be hard to have only one of those things at the same time. The amateur GM in me looks at the empty roster on eliteprospects and sees a lot of potential and has already started scouting both on EP and EHM, even though the squad will look totally different from that it's still pretty fun to do to kill some time

Icos · Post by **Icos** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 11:50 pm

Some interesting news from the North. Can someone point me to the budgets these teams have (Blues, Modo), compared to the average or top of the leagues? And what are the average budgets in Mestis or Allsvenskan?

kempelito · Post by **kempelito** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 12:08 am

Icos wrote:Some interesting news from the North. Can someone point me to the budgets these teams have (Blues, Modo), compared to the average or top of the leagues? And what are the average budgets in Mestis or Allsvenskan?

These were the numbers "exposed" by the network that sends the SHL for this season, and for the HockeyAllsvenskan the 14/15 season it was said from 5-15 millions (everything in kronor, the swedish currency). The salaries aren't official as in other leagues, but I don't think they would publish the numbers without have any kind of knowledge

Post by **Tasku** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 5:05 am

Icos wrote:Some interesting news from the North. Can someone point me to the budgets these teams have (Blues, Modo), compared to the average or top of the leagues? And what are the average budgets in Mestis or Allsvenskan?

Can't find a list of Mestis player budgets, but somewhere around € 500 000 would the high end team(?)

Here are Liiga team budgets at the start of the season:

http://liiga.fi/uutiset/2015/09/04/liig ... en-2015-16

The lighter blue represents all expenses, darker blue is the player budget (in millions of euros). If you scroll down you'll see the numbers. "Budjetti" being the total budget, and "pelaajabudjetti" the player budget.

Thomaxius · Post by **Thomaxius** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 8:46 am

Yeah, Jukurit that is promoted to Liiga next season probably has a budget of 500k, others are anything between 80k and 300k.

Some mestis teams are somewhat amateur teams that rely a lot on volunteer work, which is why some have had to give up their place in mestis, such as hck and whatnot.

Oh and, removing a zero from the krona values is a good thumb rule to use when converting to euros.

Icos · Post by **Icos** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 8:54 am

Interesting, thank you. Big differences in Finland, no wonder no team from Mestis can compete for a promotion. On the other hand it's interesting that Swedes CAN cope with basicly the same differences (although if I'm not mistaken, you promote from Allsvenskan to SHL without having to play in relegation playoffs?). Has it ever happened that the winner of Allsvenskan would have denied the promotion to SHL due to financial reasons?

What happens to a bankrupt team in Finland? Will Blues, for instance, be forced (or have an option) to play in Mestis, or even lower leagues... or will they have to close the team (considering they don't find the new funds)?

Thomaxius · Post by **Thomaxius** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 9:09 am

kempelito wrote:Unfortunately it was my team Modo that was relegated, call it dumb optimism but I still think we can win something from it, as the last about five years have felt like they half-assed a team from the beginning to fill it up with some quality when the panic that we might get relegated strikes.

I do believe It's a good thing in the sense that now you have a chance to start from scratch.

Back when Finland still had the possibility of relegation, my team nearly was relegated (The series went to game seven), since then we have won the championship and I feel like the near-relegation was a turning point as we had been to the bottom of the pit.

Thomaxius · Post by **Thomaxius** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 9:24 am

Icos wrote:Interesting, thank you. Big differences in Finland, no wonder no team from Mestis can compete for a promotion. On the other hand it's interesting that Swedes CAN cope with basicly the same differences (although if I'm not mistaken, you promote from Allsvenskan to SHL without having to play in relegation playoffs?). Has it ever happened that the winner of Allsvenskan would have denied the promotion to SHL due to financial reasons?

I guess Sweden has more population and more funding for sports (since football is big in Sweden and not so big in Finland) and the general economics are better in Sweden then Finland, which all allows bigger budgets and teams (Basically 80% liiga teams are operating with +- profit or huge losses). But maybe truly opening the liiga might create bigger budget mestis teams? Who knows.

What happens to a bankrupt team in Finland? Will Blues, for instance, be forced (or have an option) to play in Mestis, or even lower leagues... or will they have to close the team (considering they don't find the new funds)?

Well, rumors say they might end up in fin-2 or fin-3 so nothing sure yet. Teams have went bankrupt before, though (Kalpa, jokipojat, Jokerit(?)..), so I should research a bit more how they kept operating.

Personally, I don't belive they'll go anywhere from Liiga. The liiga needs them (basically their place in liiga is worth 1,5million€, which btw is a sum that every team has to pay who wants to join the liiga) and having one less team would/might harm the reputation and interest in liiga and cause less tv revenue for teams and whatnot. There are talks that someone might buy the team. Currently, in theory, the "IRS of Finland" owns Blues since they went bankrupt. So maybe we'll see HC-IRS next season in liiga, funded with our tax money

I migth've given false info on some cases, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

kempelito · Post by **kempelito** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 10:55 am

Icos wrote:(although if I'm not mistaken, you promote from Allsvenskan to SHL without having to play in relegation playoffs?). Has it ever happened that the winner of Allsvenskan would have denied the promotion to SHL due to financial reasons?

No, contrary to the swedish soccer league Fotbollsallsvenskan, as far as I know (born in -83 myself) there has never been direct promotion to the Swedish hockey league, the only exception was 2014/15 when two teams from Hockeyallsvenskan played each other for a direct spot (on account that the SHL was expanding from 12 teams to 14).
Earlier it has been a relegation series with six teams where the two top teams have played in the SHL the following season.

From this season and on, the two SHL teams on the bottom of the table will have to play a relegation playoff series in 7 games against either the winner of Hockeyallsvenska finalen (This year between 1st placed AIK and 2nd placed Tingsryd, thus 14th placed SHL team Karlskrona met AIK in the series),
or against either the winner of Meca hockey race or the game that lost Hockeyallsvenska finalen (this year Leksand won against Tingsryd to take on 13th placed SHL team Modo.) So Leksand actually placed 4th in Hockeyallsvenskan but still had the chance for promotion. You can actually be 8th in Hockeyallsvenskan and still have a small chance of winning the Meca hockey race, a series for teams in 3rd to 8th place, but you carry on bonus points from where you placed in the Hockeyallsvenskan.

Hope this is understandable?

Post by **A9L3E** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 11:35 am

Thomaxius wrote: Well, rumors say they might end up in fin-2 or fin-3 so nothing sure yet. Teams have went bankrupt before, though (Kalpa, jokipojat, Jokerit(?)..), so I should research a bit more how they kept operating.

Personally, I don't belive they'll go anywhere from Liiga. The liiga needs them (basically their place in liiga is worth 1,5million€, which btw is a sum that every team has to pay who wants to join the liiga) and having one less team would/might harm the reputation and interest in liiga and cause less tv revenue for teams and whatnot. There are talks that someone might buy the team. Currently, in theory, the "IRS of Finland" owns Blues since they went bankrupt. So maybe we'll see HC-IRS next season in liiga, funded with our tax money

The likes of KalPa and Kärpät were relegated two tiers lower upon bankruptcy, and came out debt-free, so this could be what Blues is in for as well. 'Tis difficult to say, though, for much has changed since a top-tier club last went bankrupt. Regarding what you said about Ässät's relegation threat in that playout series, to me it seemed like the ones running SM-liiga considered the possibility of relegation as a way to to add excitement for the fans, without actually believing a Mestis club could even come close to promotion. When Sport did, news started circulating that the promotion is not that simple after all, and that Sport would need to buy the spot from Ässät, and all sorts of loopholes were attempted to surface, to the point it started to seem like even if Sport managed to beat Ässät, the most that could happen would be for Sport to get promoted without Ässät getting relegated. Must have been a great relief for them that it did not happen, for I believe that would have eaten out all remnants of SM-liiga's respectability.

Post by **Tasku** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 1:55 pm

I'm still holding on to the fact that Jussi Salonoja (former Blues owner) has come forward in an attempt to save the team. He has money. Money can change all!

All Hail Salonoja!

Post by **Alessandro** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 2:02 pm

We're finally getting closer and closer to the Gagarin Cup finals. Here more about the teams:
http://thehockeywriters.com/cska-metall ... garin-cup/
Have a good read

Thomaxius · Post by **Thomaxius** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 3:10 pm

A9L3E wrote: Regarding what you said about Ässät's relegation threat in that playout series, to me it seemed like the ones running SM-liiga considered the possibility of relegation as a way to to add excitement for the fans, without actually believing a Mestis club could even come close to promotion. When Sport did, news started circulating that the promotion is not that simple after all, and that Sport would need to buy the spot from Ässät, and all sorts of loopholes were attempted to surface, to the point it started to seem like even if Sport managed to beat Ässät, the most that could happen would be for Sport to get promoted without Ässät getting relegated. Must have been a great relief for them that it did not happen, for I believe that would have eaten out all remnants of SM-liiga's respectability.

That's true, the Liiga hadn't really thought about it being a possibility that Sport actually could be promoted. I can imagine them having an emergency meeting cause they went 'oh poo, this might actually be happening'. If things had turned the other way around though, I'm sure they would've kept Ässät in the league out of whatever reasons. Regardless of the case, it still was depressing to sit in a bus when we were coming back from Vaasa in drizzly rain, knowing that we actually might lose this series to a mestis team. That I still consider being on the bottom of the pit, and won't ever want to feel that again. Or that one match that went to overtime and a goal would've ended the series for Sport, and they hit the post. I still get a heartattack from that. Thinking about this made me so nostalgic that I have to dig up the part where a player shouts 'Hey coach, you're a McDavid-ing joke' to Juhani Tamminen at the end of the series.

One thing that contributed to the tightness of the relegation series was motivation, imo. That year, liiga had tried out a new 'playout series', which interested no-one and the players really didn't have any motivation to play for a chance to win a summer break. So when those were over, you still had 7 possible matches to go.

Oh and back to the thread, about bankruptcy, Pelicans was also going bankrupt at one point but got a controversial loan from Liiga, which allowed them to continue in it.

Post by **A9L3E** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 7:03 pm

Russian U18 team for the World Championships has been replaced entirely due to a doping scandal.

Post by **Alessandro** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 9:59 pm

A9L3E wrote:Russian U18 team for the World Championships has been replaced entirely due to a doping scandal.

A circus. The WADA is a circus itself, the way the RIHF is dealing with the thing is another circus...

Post by **A9L3E** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 11:21 pm

Alessandro wrote:A circus. The WADA is a circus itself, the way the RIHF is dealing with the thing is another circus...

Can you elaborate?

Post by **nino33** » Wed Apr 06, 2016 11:21 pm

Alessandro wrote:
A9L3E wrote:Russian U18 team for the World Championships has been replaced entirely due to a doping scandal.
A circus. The WADA is a circus itself, the way the RIHF is dealing with the thing is another circus...

IMO it seems to me the problem is clearly the doping being acceptable
The old ways are no longer acceptable; I think it's time to stop blaming/claiming persecution/etc and instead clean things up

Post by **Alessandro** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 8:24 am

A9L3E wrote:
Alessandro wrote:A circus. The WADA is a circus itself, the way the RIHF is dealing with the thing is another circus...
Can you elaborate?

What should be elaborated? The situation is clear: politics invaded sports even more than before.
Everyone in Russian hockey stopped using meldonium on november 2nd, so this is a circus.

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