As far as the quality of hockey and the production of games, most reviews of the first CHL season were highly favourable. The man who oversees that aspect of the league, Bo Lennartsson, agrees. He also sees room for improvement, however, with the highly successful Swedish and Finnish clubs providing a blueprint for others in Europe to follow.
by Lukas Kratochvil
Bo Lennartsson, the Champions Hockey League's sport director, has held leadership roles in hockey since the early 1980s. As a coach of Farjestad Karlstad from 1997 to 2006, both as a head coach and an assistant, the club won two national championships and went to the Swedish finals two other times. Lennartsson’s coaching career also included two years with the Swedish national junior team. He was later Farjestad’s Director of Player Development before becoming Tournament Director of the European Trophy from 2010 to 2013. He was an integral part of the process which saw the European Trophy successfully integrated into the Champions Hockey League.
At the CHL's recent General Assembly in Prague, he shared his opinions on the first season of the competition and what to expect in the 2015–16 season and beyond.
From your point of view, how would you evaluate the first season of the Champions Hockey League, as far as the hockey itself?
I think we delivered what we set out to do – we produced 161 games. We have an official game program that worked great, we had an international referee in the group stage and two of them in the playoff stage. We had lot of great games and when we reached the playoffs the level of competition and intensity went even higher. So I'm really happy with our product. Considering that we were basically starting from a blank sheet, we delivered for sure.
The CHL is a competition where teams from all over the Europe bring a different style or approach. Did that create any challenges for you?
We understood that our scheduling was very tight for smaller leagues and clubs because they had to register players and we start quite early, so for them this was a challenge. We all had to work together for the benefit of both the domestic leagues and our competition, and the commitment and fan bases from some of these smaller clubs were great and we even saw some surprises on the ice.
There were some surprises as you say, but at the same time we really saw the strength of the Swedish and Finnish clubs. Since you are familiar with Nordic hockey, especially in Sweden, was that something you were expecting?
I know that Finns and Swedes assemble their players and start their training camps much earlier than clubs from Central Europe, so they were one or two steps ahead. That is one reason for the difference. And we also know that there are many good clubs in Finland and Sweden.
The surprise was that some of the Central European team didn't last as long as I had expected – they were out quite early in the playoffs, despite the fact we have good teams with some really good players there. But the time for preparation and the commitment was there from the Scandinavian teams. When you see what some teams do to be successful, it shows that you have to match that at least if you want to beat them. I think some of the others have learned and they will be much better prepared this time and we also hope to see some Czech, Swiss, German or Austrian teams later in the tournament or even in the final.
On that note, how important do you think the CHL is for the development of European hockey?
Very important. I mentioned the Central European leagues, which are already on a pretty good level and want to take that next step, but I also see that our product is here to help smaller countries, smaller leagues grow and to sell hockey in countries like Great Britain or France. Hockey has a big potential – we who were players and coaches know that we have a great sport and we're giving it a stage to reach a bigger audience. Obviously the CHL is here to determine the champions, but also to help hockey grow and educate more players. That is one of the tasks we have.
Another one of the goals is to keep players in the leagues in the future. We have the KHL and NHL here who take 20 to 30 players from Sweden or Finland every year, so if we can help clubs keep the players longer, it will help them and it would help us. I think it's a challenge for all the clubs together, because together we can do this.
The CHL format has changed – there will be 48 clubs with only three teams in every group. What do you expect from this step?
I think this step to have more teams and only three clubs in each group is a very good idea. We can launch the playoffs and have head-to-head games much earlier. Last year, we often saw that the groups were already decided before the last games, but now it will be a tough race to reach the first playoff round. I think this is really big and a good step from our side to start the playoff stage earlier.
What do you expect from the upcoming season?
We want to keep up the high calibre of play and we also want a bigger commitment from some of the clubs, as we discussed at the General Assembly in Prague. I also hope to have more spectators in the arenas. It's a challenge to sell the good games in August, but I hope we can improve on that this year.