Salzburg crowned Austrian champions early

The win2day ICE Hockey League will begin its title-deciding final series in the coming days. Red Bull Salzburg will face Bolzano and have therefore already been confirmed as Austrian champions.

03 April 20232 min read

After the Bulls won their best-of-seven series against EC KAC 4:0 to 4:1 on Sunday to reach the final, they are the last Austrian team remaining in the championship, as the Vienna Capitals were eliminated by Bolzano 1:4 at the same time. Salzburg are therefore assured of the title of Austrian champions and will now also seek to defend their ICE Hockey League title.

They will face regular-season winners Bolzano, against whom they have managed only one win this season. However, they now start again from scratch. The two sides have already met twice in the final, with the South Tyroleans coming out on top on both occasions. In 2014, they won the then best-of-five series 3:2, while in 2018 they claimed the best-of-seven series 4:3.

As regular-season winners, Bolzano have home-ice advantage for the opening game, with the first match at Salzburg's Eisarena taking place on Saturday.

On EC Red Bull Salzburg's club website, Thomas Raffl explains: “The key to success is our defensive game. We also have many different players and the quality to score goals up front. In the semi-final, apart from that one away game, we played very compactly against Klagenfurt, and we want to take that into the final as well. It will be important that we continue to play as disciplined as we have so far and focus on our game. Nevertheless, we expect a long final series, which we want to finish by coming off the ice as winners.”