Release from 13.09.2022

23rd season starts with two-day kick-off event in Velden

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At the start of the week, the win2day ICE Hockey League met for a two-day kick-off event in Velden am Wörthersee. On Monday evening, head coaches and key players played in the first win2day ICE Hockey League Charity Poker Tournament. The following day, the traditional season kick-off press conference took place again at Casino Velden after a two-year break - and kicked off the 23rd season of the win2day ICE Hockey League starting on September 16.

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The win2day ICE Hockey League met again this year for the traditional season kick-off press conference. Together with title sponsor win2day, the kick-off event was held in the glamorous ambience of Casino Velden - and extended to include the first win2day ICE Hockey League Charity Poker Tournament.

5,000 euro donation sum goes to child cancer assistance Bolzano
On Monday evening, head coaches and key players, as well as representatives of title sponsor win2day and the ICE Hockey League, met for a charity poker tournament played in Texas hold'em. Win2day offered a prize of Euro 5,000 for the winner of the tournament. In an exciting heads-up Daniel Frank from HCB Südtirol Alperia was happy about the donation amount and supports the Children's Cancer Aid Bolzano.

Traditional season start press conference in Velden
On Tuesday, the traditional season start press conference was held in Casino Velden, which first reviewed the completed season: All COVID-related challenges were overcome together and also the spectators came back to the arenas in large numbers. In the playoffs - already with new title sponsor win2day - the league experienced a boom, more than 100,000 spectators did not miss the postseason. In addition, the league's media value also broke through the 90 million euro mark for the first time. In the coming season, the digital area in particular is to be expanded further: The new "nICE to hear you" podcast guarantees exclusive league insights, and the launch of a TikTok channel will also address a younger target group.

First full season with win2day as partner
The upcoming season of the win2day ICE Hockey League is now the first full season under the title sponsorship of the provider of online sports betting and online gaming win2day. "Ice hockey is the fastest team sport in the world, which is also very interesting for us as a betting provider. With our sponsorship, we want to help the sport win overall. Since there is no substitute for the experience in the arena, we are giving away 6x2 tickets for each game. This will allow even more fans to come to the arena; the atmosphere in the playoffs was already brilliant," says Georg Wawer, Managing Director of win2day, looking forward to the first full season as a partner.

The new season will feature 13 teams. With the BEMER Pioneers Vorarlberg and Migross Supermercati Asiago Hockey, two new teams will also be hunting down defending champions EC Red Bull Salzburg, who were named as the big favorites in the championship poll conducted on the league outlets. The mode that proved itself in the completed season, with pre-playoffs, will be retained this year. The teams ranked first through sixth after 52 matchdays qualify directly for the quarterfinals. The teams in seventh to tenth place will contest the pre-playoffs in "best-of-3" mode.
In addition, the league will follow the CHL Rulebook from now on, which has also been adopted by the IIHF Unified Rulebook. Aggressive penalties will therefore no longer be handled with a 2+2 minutes.

Developing hockey together
The win2day ICE Hockey League and the Austrian Ice Hockey Federation set the course for a successful ice hockey future in recent months with a new cooperation agreement. A new squad regulation was agreed upon, according to which from the 2022/23 season onwards, twelve players from each of the eight Austrian clubs who can be used for the ÖEHV team must appear on the match report, at least two of whom fall into the U24 age group. This regulation also applies to the other participating league nations. "We started the negotiations with the federation from very different points of view and looked for a good solution for Austrian ice hockey in different working groups. We have worked out a good concept to be able to develop ice hockey further. I see the agreement as a win-win situation for both sides. With 21 players from the win2day ICE Hockey League, we also made our contribution to the success of the Austrian national team at the World Championship and once again proved the high sporting level in our league," reports league president Jochen Pildner-Steinburg.

ICE works on league-wide sustainability program
In the long term, the win2day ICE Hockey League also wants to position itself as a sustainable league. The Moser Medical Graz99ers have already pioneered in this field last season by hosting CO2-neutral home games and planting their own forest in cooperation with the forestry company Franz Mayer-Melnhof Saurau. From now on, the Steinbach Black Wings Linz will host their upcoming home games under the label "Green Events Austria", and implement sustainability throughout the club. "Graz started last year with a forward-looking project, and now Linz has presented a new partnership, which is also supported by the Ministry of Sport. The league has been dealing with 'green events' for quite some time and it is one of the big topics of our time. This is exactly the path we want to pursue and roll out to all teams. The aim is to establish a sustainability program over the next few years," announced league managing director Christian Feichtinger.

Season kicks off on Friday
The hunt for defending champion EC Red Bull Salzburg begins on Friday. The duel between the seven-time league champions and the spusu Vienna Capitals will be broadcast live and exclusively on PULS 24 from 19:05. The other games will be broadcast live on live.ice.hockey as pay-per-view livestream.

Klick here to re-watch the press conference.

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