swisshockey.net

The ZSC Lions of Zurich defeated defending European champions Metallurg Magnitogorsk 5-0 on Wednesday night to capture the inaugural Champions Hockey League. It marks the first time a Swiss club has won an official European club championship in the sport and is arguably the greatest moment in the 69-year history of the club. Zurich takes the Silver Stone Trophy as the official best team in Europe and is awarded €1 million for their troubles. The team also earns the right to represent Europe in the 2009 Victoria Cup against a to-be-determined challenger team from the National Hockey League. Zurich goaltender Ari Sulander (at left holding a different trophy) was named tournament MVP, thanks in part to his 25 save performance in Wednesday’s deciding game.

The 5-0 margin of victory is a bit misleading seeing as the score after two periods was only 2-0. But Zurich was clearly the better team on the ice in both legs of the final. Last week’s first game at Magnitogorsk ended 2-2 after ZSC relinquished a late 2-0 lead. It became clear the Lions would not suffer a repeat performance Wednesday after Mathias Seger and Jan Alston scored early third period goals for the home team. Their goals clearly settled the matter; Magnitogorsk was out of ideas and out of energy. The capacity crowd at Rapperswil’s Eishalle (Zurich’s home arena, the Hallenstadion, was not available for the occasion) was left to celebrate in style.

Ontario-born Blaine Down opened the scoring late in the first period. Until that point the teams had been evenly matched, though ZSC hit the post a few minutes earlier. Peter Sejna, a Slovak national who played parts of four seasons for the St. Louis Blues before signing for Zurich at the start of last season, doubled the Lions’ lead on a powerplay goal around the midpoint of the game. The Russian club had their best chances to get on the scoreboard late in the second period, when they briefly had a two man advantage. But Zurich’s penalty killing unit held firm, clearly frustrating the visitors.

ZSC’s triumph is significant on many levels. Not only does it officially establish the club as the best in Europe, but by default gives Switzerland’s league the same bragging right. This not only contradicts conventional wisdom–the Russian league was, until today at least, widely viewed as the best outside the NHL–it also makes Switzerland an attractive destination for player and managerial talent. It puts Switzerland, today seen as little more than an outpost by the average North American hockey fan, on the map as a hockey country. Eventually, should the NHL expand to Europe (little more than a pipedream at this point, but still) it puts the country at the top of a shortlist of candidate countries.

Next season, the CHL will expand to 29 teams from 22 countries and include two qualification stages. The champions of the top seven European domestic leagues (Russia, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and German) will qualify automatically for the group stage. The regular season winners of the top four leagues (Russia, Finland, Czech Republic, Sweden) qualify automatically for the second qualification stage with Swiss, Slovak and German regular season champs being drawn with the champions of leagues placed eight through 22.

This first edition of the tournament began last Oct. 8 with 12 teams from seven countries. In qualifying for the final, ZSC beat Finland’s Espoo Blues in the semifinal after previously defeating Slavia Prague and Sweden’s Linkoping, among others.