Ritten welcomes Asiago in finals opener

This is one of the most important challenges of the recent years: the final of the Sky Alps Hockey League will oppose the Rittner Buam to Migross Supermercati Asiago Hockey 1935. The two teams won seven of the last eight editions of the Italian Serie A (4 Asiago and 3 Rittner Buam). This data let clearly show that it is no a coincidence that the two teams are fighting also to become the AHL champions. As happened recently in January, during the Final of Four Scudetto, and two years ago in the final playoff of the Italian Scudetto, the two teams will return to fight against each other. On one side, there is the team of Klobstein. During this season, the Rittner Buam have already proved its worth: the first team in the regular season, the first team in the Master Round and until now they earned six victories in the playoff and had just one defeat. Borgatello &Co won in three games against the HC Neumarkt Riwega the series of quarter final and then eliminated in the semifinals the SG Cortina Hafro 3:1 in the series. On the other side, Asiago Hockey started very slowly the beginning of the regular season of the Alps Sky Hockey League but then the yellow-red team succeeded in getting to this final after a steady and gradual growth throughout the whole season. During the playoff, Asiago met until now Austrian and Slovenian but not Italian teams. Asiago has first beat the VEU Feldkirch (3-0 in the series of the quarter final) and then eliminated Jesenice in five games. On Thursday night in the decisive game of the semifinals, the yellow-red team won 4:2 against the Slovenian team and succeeded in getting to the final. The first edition of the final of the Sky Alps Hockey League will be a challenge between the most reliable formations that were indicated at the beginning of the first season of the AHL.

 

In the last four seasons the team of coach Riku-Petteri Lehtonen has always fought for winning in Italy, earning three league titles. Only the final playoff against Asiago two years ago was lost. The formation of Klobenstein lost the decisive Game 7 in Asiago in one of the longest final playoff games of the Italian history. The Ritten team was then able to win the third Scudetto of his history in January on the road as they won the final game of Final Four in Asiago. The Renon has always won in all the matches against Asiago during this season. If we look at the two regular season games, the two games of the Master Round and the final of the Final Four Scudetto, the Rittner Buam won five times out of five. In four cases, the victory was with one goal difference, while in the Master Round Rittner Buam’s victories have come in overtime. The Rittner always play with four lines and showed to have a solid and united group that plays in choral manner. The formation of Asiago won the Italian title four times since season 2009/10 showing that this final of the Sky Alps Hockey League did not come by chance. The yellow-red team previously met Ritten three times in the final playoff. During the season 2009/10 the Asiago won its second Italian title with a sweep against the formation of Klobenstein (4:0). Two years ago the Asiago won a long series only thanks to games 7 finals and during this season they lost the final game of the Final Four. During this season the Asiago has never won against the formation of Collalbo as they were defeated 5 times. The yellow-red team, however, has grown a lot in recent times and the playoffs have been able to prove its worth. Game 2 of the final will be played in Asiago on Monday night.