The European Hockey League is now into its second season and Manchester Storm are entering again by virtue of having a decent arena. The league has merged with the Europa Cup to create the premier European competition with the majority of teams that are entering being league champions. Manchester Storm have won the wildcard place in the league as they finished in 7th in the league. Play-off champions Sheffield Steelers were invited to compete as well but they pulled out in protest at the decision to not allow Superleague champions Cardiff Devils in. Cardiff were then invited into the competition with the proviso that they played all their home games at the Nynex Arena. They refused and so were removed from the competition leaving Manchester Storm the only British representative. Last season Storm lost all 6 games and finished bottom of the group.

In all there are 24 teams playing in the European Hockey League from all around Europe in six groups of four teams. Each team in each group play each other home and away. Each group winner goes forward to to the quarter finals along with along with the best two second-place finishers. The quarter finals begin with the eight teams. Each quarter final series will be a two-leg, home-and-away tie to be played on January 4 and 6, 1998. The quarter final winners will then proceed to the semi finals, to be played on January 24. The third-place game and the EHL Final will be played on January 25. Manchester Storm have been drawn in Group F with Sparta Prague (Czech Republic), Bolzano (Italy) and Moscow Dynamo (Russia). Originally Storm were to face Amiens of France, but they changed groups and were replaced by Sparta Prague.

GROUP A Färjestads BK Jokerit Helsinki Kassel Huskies Vitkovice GROUP D Slovan Bratislava Luleå Torpedo Yaroslavl TPS Turku

GROUP B Adler Mannheim Dukla Trencin Hämeenlinna Leksands GROUP E Kölner Bern Storhamar VEU Feldkirch

GROUP C EV Zug Amiens Petra Vsetin Lada Togliatti GROUP F Manchester Storm Moscow Dynamo Bolzano Sparta Prague

Storm's EHL games will take place on a number of Tuesday evenings throughout the first part of the season and they will face tough European opposition.


Dynamo Moscow of Russia will probably be Storm's toughest opponents. They were runners-up in last year's EHL competition to winners TPS Turku. In their group games they won all their games with the exception of the games against Budejovice - they drew one and lost one against them. Dynamo Moscow then beat Slovan Bratislava in the Play-off round home and away. In the semi-final, they beat Indians Goteborg 3-2 and then went on to lose out to TPS Turku 5-2 in the final.




Bolzano are an Italian club who have not entered the EHL before. Milan entered the EHL last year and finished bottom of their group losing all their games. For this reason alone, Bolzano should be Storm's best chance of recording their first ever EHL victory - but then I'm sure Bolzano will be thinking the same.




Sparta Prague are another strong European team from the Czech Republic. They are were a late replacement for French club Amiens who moved groups for some reason. Sparta Prague won their group last season winning all their games except a 4-1 defeat by CSKA Moscow. They defeated Budejovice in the quarter finals but lost out 5-3 to eventual winners TPS Turku in the semi-final.

The results of the EHL matches can be found on the Results Page.

Storm just missed out on the quarter-finals on goal difference. The eight teams that qualified were Lada Togliatti, Torpedo Yaroslavl, Slovan Bratislava, Petra Vsetin, Moscow Dynamo, Farjestads, Hameenlinna and Feldkirch.

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