Release from 22.03.2023

Alps Hockey League starts semifinals

Short text 289 CharactersPlain text

On Thursday, the last four teams of the Alps Hockey League will start their "best-of-seven" semifinal series. While the Red Bull Hockey Juniors host S.G. Cortina Hafro in their AHL Semifinal premiere, the Rittner Buam SkyAlps visit HDD SIJ Acroni Jesenice to kick off the Semifinal series.

Press release 2791 CharactersPlain text

Alps Hockey League, 1st Semifinals:
Thu, 23.03.2023, 19:15: Red Bull Hockey Juniors - S.G.Cortina Hafro
Referees: MOSCHEN, SCHAUER, Fleischmann, Puff

For the first time Red Bull Hockey Juniors qualified for the semifinals of the Alps Hockey League. The young team from Salzburg succeeded in doing so extremely well. First, Teemu Levijoki's team earned the first pick in the Master Round. With this, they decided - somewhat surprisingly for some - on the Hockey Unterland Cavaliers, the only eligible team that also completed the Master Round. The decision proved to be the right one, as Salzburg won the series with a smooth 4-0 victory. Now waiting in the semifinals is S.G. Cortina Hafro, who qualified for the semifinals with similar ease. Cortina suffered only one defeat in the "best-of-seven" quarterfinal series against Lustenau, but twice Cortina had to go overtime. In the current season, Salzburg and Cortina have met four times. Three of those times, the Red Bull Hockey Juniors retained the upper hand. In the only defeat, Salzburg gave away a 3:1 lead. Managing leads is one of the few weaknesses of the Red Bulls this season. For example, they had to give away the Austria AHL Final against Zell after a clear lead. But the Juniors are also known to make up for large deficits: In the fourth quarterfinal game against the Hockey Unterland Cavaliers, Salzburg was already down 0:3 in the interim. Neither Salzburg nor Cortina could qualify for the final in the history of the Alps Hockey League before.

Alps Hockey League, 1st Semifinal:
Thu, 23.03.2023, 19:00: HDD SIJ Acroni Jesenice - Rittner Buam
Referees: PINIE, REZEK, Arlic, De Zordo

In the second semifinal, HDD SIJ Acroni Jesenice will face the Rittner Buam SkyAlps in a duel between the runner-up of the previous season and a former champion of the Alps Hockey League. While Jesenice qualified for the semi-finals with a smooth 4:0 series win against the Wipptal Broncos Weihenstephan, the Rittner Buam SkyAlps turned around the "best-of-seven" series against EC Die Adler Kitzbühel after trailing 1:2 in the series. Goalie Hayden Hawkey, who has a 96.5% save percentage in the playoffs, was especially convincing (Click here for an interview with Hayden Hawkey). Only Antti Karjalainen of the semi-final opponent HDD SIJ Jesenice, who shone with 97.3% against the Broncos, had an even higher save percentage. Jesenice and Ritten played four duels this season. While the Slovenians won the first three meetings, Ritten celebrated a 2-1 victory after penalty shootout in the last clash in the Master Round. The two teams already met in the preseason semifinals, with the better outcome for the Slovenians, who won the best-of-five series 3:1.

Foto (C): Max Pattis