Talk:Austria

Hockey in Austria and translations
Hockey in Austria and translations

Hello, guys. I am from Austria, and I think I can help you concerning the playoff formats of the Austrian league and some other things. First of all "Meisterrunde" means "master round" and was a format used in the 70s and 80s: the top teams after the regular season were playing on more round against each other (sometimes they got some bonus points following their ranking after the regular season) with the team ranked at number one being the champion. "Finalrunde" is simply translated "final round" and is a kind of pre-playoff with the best teams playing one round against each other in order to find the final seeding for the playoffs. It is essentially the same as the "PO-Round" and the "Zwischenrunde" played in 1994-95 and 2007-08.

Concerning the names of the teams: the "TWK" in HC TWK Innsbruck means "Tiroler Wasserkraft" = "Tyrolean Water power" and is the name of the main sponsor (tyrol is a county of Austria).

Concerning the league system: EBEL or Erste Bank Eishockey Liga is the top level with "Erste Bank" being the main and name sponsor. Nationalliga is the second level (simply translated "National League"), and "Oberliga" is the third level (and is translated something like "Top league", although it practically isn't of course). These three leagues are played nation wide as a whole and are organized by the Austrian Ice Hockey Federation (or "Österreichischer Eishockeyverband" = ÖEHV). All other leagues (Carinthian hockey league and so on) are played in only on county each and are amateur level leagues organized by the local hockey federations of the counties.

In the EBEL there are in fact two separate championships with the title of the "Austrian Champion" awarded to the best Austrian team (no matter if it is winning the league or not) and the title of the "EBEL champion", that can be won by all teams including the four teams from other countries. There are in fact also two separate cups. If an Austrian team wins the league it is awarded both of them.

All Austrian teams do have farm teams with Red Bull Salzburg having one in the Nationalliga and the other five each having on in "Oberliga". Graz 99ers also have a farmteam in the Slohokej league, which is an international league between slovenia, croatia and serbia. It is played before the respective national championships of each country and its winner simply is the league champion (the national champions are played out in separate leagues). Ljubljana and Jesenice do also have farmteams in Slohokej league of course and are playing in the slovenian championship, sometimes merging the second teams with the roster from EBEL, when the schedules are allowing to do. They usually dominate the slovenian championship.

Szekesfehervar has a farmteam playing in "MOL Liga" which is a championship for hungarian and romanian teams. It was founded in 2008 and works like the Slohokej league with the national championships of both countries played afterwards (although the games between hungarian teams do count as bonus points are given to the best teams of MOL Liga).

Medvescak Zagreb also has a team in Slohokej league being in fact a kind of a farm team since croatian hockey is not developed very well yet.

Finally some links:

http://www.eishockey.at/ is the official page of the Austrian Ice Hockey Federation. There you can find all statistics way back to 2004 following League Name -> Statistik -> Archiv. There are pdf-files for each season with results, standings and statistics. But be careful: for some unknown reason statistics are not recored separately for regular season and playoffs, so all stats are in fact season totals. To find some separated stats I'd recommend the articles in the german wikipedia (for all three nation wide leagues). Luckily the abbreviations are all in english.

http://www.erstebankliga.at/ is the official EBEL homepage which also has a small english section providing news.

I hope this helps in some way :) Best regards, 213.47.190.254 21:01, February 1, 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the information and the links. You'd certainly be welcome to add you knowledge on Austrian hockey. Me and User:Yannzgob are the two euro hockey experts here. Hockeyben 21:08, February 1, 2011 (UTC)