Release from 12.09.2019

Press conference opens fourth AHL season

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On Thursday players, coaches and officials of Alps Hockey League came together in Kitzbühel/Austria for the season opening press conference. On Saturday the league's fourth campaign starts with 18 teams from three countries.

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Kitzbühel was the idyllic ambience for the season opening press conference of Alps Hockey League on Thursday. Last campaign HK Olimpija Ljubljana had a great come back in the final series against HC Pustertal to become the league's third champion. "We saw lots of great games throughout the season and the finals were incredible. It was a great result for our teams and it's most important that Olimpija achieved it with Slovenian players. That was our goal when we signed the contract for Alps Hockey League with the other two federations. The teams are so close, what makes it even more interesting for fans and sponsors", said Dejan Kontrec, member of the AHL Board of governors and representative of the Slovenian Ice Hockey Federation at the beginning of the press conference. His colleague Tommaso Teofoli is also happy with the progress of the league and pointed out a very important topic for the Italian Ice Hockey Federation: „With the 2026 Winter Olympics we have a new goal. The young players have to believe and gain experience. That’s the only way to come up as hockey family in Italy. Alps Hockey League is perfect for us“.

Linz and Vienna join the AHL story
18 teams go in the title race as seven Austrian, seven Italian and the two Slovenian clubs of last season confirmed their participation for the 2019-20 Alps Hockey League campaign. With Steel Wings Linz and Vienna Capitals Silver two new teams in the east joined the league. "We are very happy that nine Austrian teams participate in the championship this season. We totally support Alps Hockey League as it brings development for all, everybody is profiting from this", is Gernot Mittendorfer, President of the Austrian Federation, positive that another success story will be written in the future. Both new arrivals from Linz and Vienna play their season opener on September 14th, 2019 - the league's first game day - at home. While champion HK SZ Olimpija welcomes EC-KAC II, runner-up HC Pustertal travel to VEU Feldkirch on Saturday.

The season is split in three phases. In the regular season the teams play in two full rounds against each other – 34 games per team. The first six teams qualify for the Master Round and already have a guaranteed ticket for the playoffs. They play for the privilege to pick their quarterfinal opponent in a round robin. The teams ranked on the places 7-18 are split in the second phase into two groups of six teams each. The two winners of the qualification round groups assure the last tickets for the quarterfinals.

Highlight video of every game
The league's media value of EUR 3.6 millions and the numbers of spectators have increased once again. With more than 300.000 fans coming to the areas, there was a plus of 14 percent to the last campaign. Now the AHL will again extend the range of digital contents. After live streams, moving images and highlights were made available to fans lately, there will be a highlight video of every game in the upcoming campaign. The media value and numbers of spectators raised in a decent way. The league gives the framework and the clubs do their best possible. More and more clubs do live streaming and all highlights of each and every game will be available. We are investing in moving pictures to show our product worldwide. We are on the right way,” explained Christian Feichtinger, the Commissioner of the Alps Hockey League.

Rule changes
As the league and teams are very comfortable with the play within Alps Hockey League, there are very few changes to the rules for this upcoming season. The only major rule change is that there will be assessed a 2 minute minor for all boarding infractions (instead of 2+2 for boarding last season). It's also new that players can be fined without a suspension.

Overtime in playoffs games
The only other change that is being made is in the format of Overtime in the Play-offs. There will be a difference in the structure of Overtime between elimination games and non-elimination games. In elimination games all Overtime periods will be played with 5 players on each side, until one team scores the winning goal. In NON-elimination games the 1st period of overtime will be played with 5 players on each side. The 2nd overtime period, and all subsequent OT periods, will be played with 3 skaters on each side.

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AHL press conference
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