The Final Tournament of IIHF Continental Cup in Aalborg, Denmark is about to begin on Friday. Hockey team of Comarch Cracovia will also compete here. Only three clubs are going to participate in that tournament due to the disqualification of FK Gomel from Belarus. The winners will not only get the showy trophy, but also qualify to 2022-23 Champions Hockey League.

The tournament was originally scheduled to be played at first weeks of January. However, due to the COVID-19 restrictions in Denmark, the whole challenge has been rescheduled to the first week of March. Primarily, four following teams qualified to that tournament: Comarch Cracovia, Aalborg Pirates (as a hosts), Saryaka Karagandy from Kazakhstan and HK Gomel from Belarus. Still, International Ice Hockey Federation decided to disqualify Russian and Belarussian teams from international IIHF competitions as an outcome of invasion taking place in Ukraine, so only three clubs are finally allowed to compete in the tournament.

In the first match of the competition, Comarch Cracovia will face the Saryaka Karagandy from Kazakhstan. That club was our rival at the semi-final of a tournament taking place in Cracow at November. At that time, the team from Kazahkstan won with 12-time Polish Champions, 2-0. Finally, after winning every single game, Saryaka qualified to the next round. Our second match will be played against Aalborg Pirates - the hosts of a tournament. The home team is 2-time Danish Champion. They are playing their host matches at a delightful Gigantum Hall with 4,500 of maximum capacity.

A 23-roster team trained by Rudolf Roháček came to Denmark. As a reminder, there will be no opportunity to call-up the players during the tournament, so the Coaching Staff made a decision to take a team with a maximum allowable number of competitiors. Our team started their travel to Aalborg on Thursday with the flight to Copenhagen. Later on, players and staff arrived to the final destination by bus. In total, Comarch-Cracovia travelled about 1,600 kms to reach the ultimate goal of their journey.

Let us remind you that the tournament will be played in a standard rules of IIHF. 3 points are awarded to winners during the regular time, 2 points are given to the winning team after extra-time or penalties and 1 point goes to losers after over-time. The champions of a tournament will win the showy trophy and qualify to the next season of Champions Hockey League.