This Top 10 ranking of the Top European Hockey Clubs is courtesy of www.eurohockey.net and www.hockeyarchives.info. Read the full 250 Team list here.
1. Salavat Yulaev Ufa, RUSSIA
2. HV 71, SWEDEN
3. Metallurg Magnitogorsk, RUSSIA
4. Kärpät Oulu, FINLAND
5. Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, RUSSIA
6. Ak Bars Kazan, RUSSIA
7. CSKA Moscou, RUSSIA
8. Blues Espoo, FINLAND
9. Linköping, SWEDEN
10. Khimik Mytishchi, RUSSIA
As you can see, the new Continental Hockey League (KHL) houses 6 of the Top 10 European teams in the world according to this list. After that, Sweden and Finland are tied for 2nd with two apiece. A little shocking to me is that Swiss teams SC Bern and HC Davos were ranked 16th and 33rd respectively. SC Bern is a team that features former NHLers Ramzi Abid, Mark Mowers, Sebastien Bordelau, Christian Dube, Nathan Dempsey and Simon Gamache. The superior quality of the Big 3 Euro Teams (Russia, Finland, Sweden) partly explains this but in my opinion the fact that Swiss League team’s SC Bern and HC Davos compete regularly for the Spengler Cup title and attract decent NHLers like Janne Niinimaa (HC Davos) says something too. It won’t get any easier for the Swiss League (and Czech League for that matter) either as the new KHL will only raise the competitive bar.
For Illegal Curve, I’m Ezra Ginsburg.
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