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Champions Hockey League

SoundAndFury

SoundAndFury

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May 28, 2012
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bv29 said:
This was the last true Champions hockey league. I remember interest was really high, arenas were packed. You cant have "Champions league" and not having KHL teams. It's like having Uefa CL without Premiership or without Real and Barcelona.

I do like watching CHL, good hockey, but you have that feeling something is missing...
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:rolleyes:

Well that's what happens when one country wants to act like they can take over hockey in the entire continent, have every expansion project collapse, start a war because money for the soft power adventures that don't yield any results is running out and they are left playing in their own sandbox with half of the team struggling to even keep up the appearances of their glorified Superleague.
 
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vorky

vorky

@vorkywh24
Jan 23, 2010
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bv29 said:
en.wikipedia.org

Champions Hockey League (2008–09) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

This was the last true Champions hockey league. I remember interest was really high, arenas were packed. You cant have "Champions league" and not having KHL teams. It's like having Uefa CL without Premiership or without Real and Barcelona.

I do like watching CHL, good hockey, but you have that feeling something is missing...
Click to expand...
Agree.

It is more complicated with CHL 2008 .... there is too much dishonest from some guys who are bashing the KHL / original sponsors for its cancelation. Not all truth has been circulating in media. There were multiple reasons for CHL cancelation. Financial crisis, but this issue was not crutial. Original sponsors were not satisfied with marketing partner, therefore the agreement of original sponsors with IIHF about one-year postponement with preferential right of original sponsors in case of re-starting. Later the NHL came to the scene demading the majority ownership in CHL, original sponsors wanted 50/50 share, which was refused by NHL. If you are interested in this history case, try to google. Basically, what is happening now in CHL / European hockey started in these days. Some people running European hockey wanted more power than they ever had. Hoping they will find out in their retirement what bad disservice they did to European hockey. Finally, you can not organise such a tournament without resources. They tried & failed as we can see now, in CHL 2024.
 

Old Man Jags

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Mar 25, 2006
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Albatros said:
Just so happens that no Czech team has ever won it. Surely only because they don't want to, and not because their league is weak.
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This is a rather pointless comment. It is a fact that nobody watches the CHL until the final. And before you make silly assumptions, you should perhaps know what you are talking about. The coach said that he personally likes the CHL because it is a great opportunity to play against good teams from other countries and different playing systems. He likes it from a sporting perspective but says that nobody wants to watch it. Which is true. The quarterfinal Sparta just played in Sweden was played in front of a pretty empty stadium. The CHL is badly organized, fans don’t watch it for some reason and it is loss-making EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Czech club owners don’t particularly like it because they make no money with it. Nothing to do with the league being weak - a Czech club probably won’t win it but quarterfinals or semifinals are no surprise.

In contrast, a Czech football club will probably never play a football CL semifinal again because the league is far too weak for it. Yet Czech football clubs love the CL. Why? Because it makes a huge amount of money, is very prestigious and fans watch it.
 
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Albatros

Albatros

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Aug 19, 2017
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Sure it's not the premier competition that the Champions League in soccer is, but which domestic league is doing much better? The latest SHL weekday game in Växjö also had similar attendance.

If Sparta makes more money against Mountfield then good for them. They can always leave the CHL and do a longer domestic schedule instead if that's what the fans there want. Improving the CHL would rather mean more CHL games. But soccer money there's never going to be in any part of European hockey, not domestic and not continental.
 
vorky

vorky

@vorkywh24
Jan 23, 2010
11,549
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Old Man Jags said:
This is a rather pointless comment. It is a fact that nobody watches the CHL until the final. And before you make silly assumptions, you should perhaps know what you are talking about. The coach said that he personally likes the CHL because it is a great opportunity to play against good teams from other countries and different playing systems. He likes it from a sporting perspective but says that nobody wants to watch it. Which is true. The quarterfinal Sparta just played in Sweden was played in front of a pretty empty stadium. The CHL is badly organized, fans don’t watch it for some reason and it is loss-making EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Czech club owners don’t particularly like it because they make no money with it. Nothing to do with the league being weak - a Czech club probably won’t win it but quarterfinals or semifinals are no surprise.

In contrast, a Czech football club will probably never play a football CL semifinal again because the league is far too weak for it. Yet Czech football clubs love the CL. Why? Because it makes a huge amount of money, is very prestigious and fans watch it.
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Agree.

I will again repeat my words. How is it possible that the CHL management allows Eisbären/Frölunda (others?) to play their CHL games at back-up arena instead of their main venue (Uber Arena/Scandinavium). By this decision they are degrading the competition, showing how much they value it. And yes, I know, people would not fill 12000+ arena for that matches. But you can not do what they have been doing ....
 

Goodman68

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Jul 11, 2016
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Albatros said:
Just so happens that no Czech team has ever won it. Surely only because they don't want to, and not because their league is weak.
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A weak league would be one whose participants would regularly be eliminated in the group stage, or at the very beginning of the knockout stage. But not one whose participants played in the final several times.
 
Albatros

Albatros

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Two 2nd places in 9 years and 5th place in the ranking isn't exactly stellar given that the serious competition is really just between 5 leagues.
 

Goodman68

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Jul 11, 2016
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Considering that some teams outright sabotaged the league (at one time even the later finalist from Hradec Králové), it is certainly not a bad result :cool:
And Czech teams have more final or semi-final appearances than Germans or Swiss (if I'm not mistaken, I don't want to look for it).
 
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Namejs

Namejs

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Dec 24, 2011
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Oslo
Success isn't measured by the sheer number of attendees. You can build a brand new ice rink with 50,000 seats for 20 billion euros and fill it with 50,000 people by handing out tickets for free or paying them vodka and cigarettes to attend the games. That's not what success looks like, vorky. If your government is losing money to prop the whole thing up, it's a massive failure. At least outside russia.

If the teams are breaking even, the federation isn't losing money and the rate of attendance keeps rising, it's a moderately succesful affair.

Hockey isn't soccer, the attendance rates should be measured against comparable attendance rates.

We will see whether the CHL is successful or not after the Infront deal runs out. The CHL is still in a brand building stage. Is it going to pay off? Maybe, maybe not.

The 2009 or w/e version of CHL was more lucrative, but if the sponsors were losing money, it was still clearly a failure.
 
vorky

vorky

@vorkywh24
Jan 23, 2010
11,549
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Namejs said:
Success isn't measured by the sheer number of attendees. You can build a brand new ice rink with 50,000 seats for 20 billion euros and fill it with 50,000 people by handing out tickets for free or paying them vodka and cigarettes to attend the games. That's not what success looks like, vorky. If your government is losing money to prop the whole thing up, it's a massive failure. At least outside russia.

If the teams are breaking even, the federation isn't losing money and the rate of attendance keeps rising, it's a moderately succesful affair.

Hockey isn't soccer, the attendance rates should be measured against comparable attendance rates.

We will see whether the CHL is successful or not after the Infront deal runs out. The CHL is still in a brand building stage. Is it going to pay off? Maybe, maybe not.

The 2009 or w/e version of CHL was more lucrative, but if the sponsors were losing money, it was still clearly a failure.
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Thank you that you explained us what is a success and what is not. If there is higher attendance at Sparta Prague CHL SF than usuall, it will not be a success by using your own words. One more time, thank you!

 
Czechboy

Czechboy

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Apr 15, 2018
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Albatros said:
Just so happens that no Czech team has ever won it. Surely only because they don't want to, and not because their league is weak.
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1734749783235.png


2 things here

1. NO ONE gives a shit about this tournament
2. Czechs are actually quite good at it

FWIW.. if we won all of them it still wouldn't mean much. But let's not pretend we are not consistently in the final 4. Or that the Extraliga is about as strong as it's been in the last 20 years.

Normally I'm on your side and like your posts... but seriously?
 
Albatros

Albatros

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Sure 5th place in the rankings is quite good, ahead of the not-bad Austrian league after all, but you don't hear teams that won the competition complain about how it didn't matter to them. Is it a secondary competition for as good as everyone involved? Of course. Much like the domestic cups in soccer. But if your fans prefer another game against Mountfield or even no hockey at all in the schedule then what you've got to do is to get out of the competition altogether and do just that. Or if you want a different kind of competition then tell how that should look like. Participating with modest success just to whine year after year how this didn't matter and how the very strong Extraliga is all we need is quite obnoxious.
 
Albatros

Albatros

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So what's the end game? Get out of the competition? Change it and if so how? Keep it as it is and keep whining? I'm not hearing any constructive proposals anywhere from Czechia regarding the CHL.
 
Czechboy

Czechboy

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Apr 15, 2018
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Albatros said:
So what's the end game? Get out of the competition? Change it and if so how? Keep it as it is and keep whining? I'm not hearing any constructive proposals anywhere from Czechia regarding the CHL.
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We care about fixing the CHL about as much as we care about fixing the WNBA.
 
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