It's finally here! What started out as 48 teams back in the sunshine of August now culminates in Northern Finland as Europe prepares to crown its second Champions Hockey League winners.
Oulu's Energia Areena arena is the venue for this year's Final, and will be sold out as hosts Karpat welcome the Frolunda Indians to decide who will be champions of Europe in 2015–16. The visitors from Sweden have history with the competition, having made it through to last year's final where they lost in Lulea, and will again have to do it on the road if they are to lift the trophy this year.
For Karpat their excellent form over the previous rounds means they host the final game, a year after being knocked out of the competition by Frolunda at the semifinal stage.
Frolunda's poor recent form in the SHL has seen them lose three on the bounce, falling eight points behind Skelleftea but cemented in second, but isn't something that they think will affect them in the CHL Final. "We know that we play really good teams in the Champions Hockey League, but the hockey is a little bit different," said coach Roger Ronnberg in yesterday's pre-game press conference. "We have to be able to adjust the way we play a little bit. We were forced to adjust against Davos and we were very successful. We also know we'll have to adjust a little bit against Karpat, so I think the quick adjustment is key.”
The two sides met last season in the Semi-Finals, and Lauri Marjamaki thinks it will help his team. "We learned that we have a chance against them and we are able to challenge them," said the Karpat coach. "We have to play an extremely solid 60 minutes. ‘Pretty good’ is not enough, we have to be tactically smart, but above all the intensity and tempo will be high.”
Face-off tonight is at 17:30 CET, and will be shown live on the following channels: MTV Sport 1, ESPN Brazil, One World, LAOLA1, Belarus 5, Best4Sport Latvia, Dailymotion (FRA), DirecTV LA, Premier Sports, Sports 1 (CZE/SVK), Sport 1 (HUN), Sport 1 Israel, Sport TV, Sports TV Turkey, SVT 1/2, Teleclub, TSN GO, TVP Sport, TV2 Sport Denmark, Viasat Sport.
If your country is not covered by one of the broadcasts above, you can watch it live online by purchasing a Game Day Pass.