Continental Cup: The Rittner's opponents

Rittner Buam(ITA) Ritten is one of the oldest ice hockey clubs in Italy and took part in the national championship as early as 1929. Today the Rittner Buam play their home games in the Ritten Arena in Klobenstein, which has a capacity of 1.200 spectators.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the club was still playing in the third division, Serie C. Ritten then remained in the second division until the 2000/01 season, when the team achieved promotion to Serie A1. In 2006, the “Buam” reached the final of the Serie A play-offs for the first time, where they lost 0-3 to the HC Milano Vipers. Ritten also reached the final in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2015, but lost twice against HC Bozen and twice against Asiago. In April 2014, President Thomas Rottensteiner's club won the Italian championship for the first time. Master trainer was Rob Wilson. This success was repeated in the 2015/16 season, this time under the leadership of Finnish head coach Riku-Petteri Lehtonen.

The championship team was rejuvenated for the 2016/17 season. Emanuel Scelfo, Luca Ansoldi, David Ceresa, Jan Waldner and the foreigners Andrew Engelage, Brendan Cook and Mark van Guildern are no longer in the squad, but goalkeeper Patrick Killeen, the Swedish twin brothers Oscar and Victor Ahlström, Roland Hofer, Danil Spimpolo and Tommaso are Traversa came. Some talent from the junior team was also integrated into the first team.

Two championship titles, two Supercups and three Italian Cups The club won its first national title with the Supercup in 2009, when Bozen was defeated. The following year the “Buam” repeated their victory against Asiago. Ritten, however, has already won the Italian Cup three times: in 2010, 2014 and 2015.

Rittner is taking part in the Continental Cup for the second time this year. Two years ago the third round also took place in Klobenstein. Ritten narrowly missed out on making it to the Super Final. The decisive factor was the 1:2 defeat in the penalty shootout against Bremerhaven. The Fischtown Pinguins and the Kazakhs from Yertis Pavlodar rose, Ritten was eliminated.

HK Beibarys Atyrau (KAZ) The HK Beibarys Atyrau was founded in 2009 and has been taking part in the Kazakh championship since the 2009/10 season. Beibarys plays at the Khiuaz Dospanova Ice Palace in the western Kazakh port city of Atyrau, which is roughly equally divided between European and Asian territory and has a population of 170.000.

In its debut season, Atyrau only failed in the final series in the fifth playoff against HK Sary-Arka Karaganda. The club became Kazakh champions for the first time in their history in 2011. The team was able to successfully defend the title in 2012 and their third success followed last year.

15 Russians in the team The team has been coached by Alexander Istomin since the year it was founded. The team includes 6 Kazakhs, 15 Russians (four of them with KHL experience), a Slovakian and an Israeli. The team's best-known player is 33-year-old Russian defender Denis Makarov, who has 222 KHL games to his name. Russian striker Maxim Sharifyanov, however, played the most games in the Beibarys uniform and made 253 championship appearances (195 scorer points).

HK Beibarys Atyrau already played in the ContinentalCup in 2012 and 2013. In 2012, the team failed in the second round in a penalty shootout against the Latvian representative Liepajas Metalurgs. The following year, the Kazakhs took revenge against the Latvians and qualified for the third round, where they were then eliminated in Norway against the Belarusians from Metallurg Zhlobin and host Stavanger Oilers .

GKS Tychy (POL) GKS Tychy can look back on a great tradition. The club was founded in 1971 and plays at the Zimowy Stadium in the 130.000-strong city of Tychy in the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland. Tychy competes in the Ekstraliga and won the Polish championships twice in 2005 and 2015. The club has also been runner-up five times and has won the Polish Cup six times, most recently in 2015. Last year Tychy had to be content with third place in the championship.

The 54-year-old former Czech world champion Jiri Sejba has been the Poland coach for four seasons. The squad includes 22 local players, five Czechs and one Slovakian. The crowd's favorite in Tychy is 36-year-old striker Adam Baginski, who played 551 championship games for his club and scored 454 points (176 goals and 278 assists).

Tychy qualified for the third round of the Continental Cup in Klobenstein thanks to a home win against the Hungarian representative DVTK Jegesmedvek Miskolc, the Slovenians from Acroni Jesenice and the Romanians from Dunarea Galati.

Last year Tychy was in the SuperFinal of the Continental Cup This is Tychy's third participation in the ContinentalCup. Two years ago, the Poles made it through the second round and then were eliminated after three defeats in the third round in Angers against the hosts, Neman Grodno and the Belfast Giants. In the 2015-16 season, Tychy survived two preliminary rounds (including a 26-0 record win against Partizan Belgrade) and then surprisingly reached the super final in Rouen. Here the Poles took third place behind the home team and the Danes from Herning Blue Fox, even ahead of the Italian champions Asiago.

HK Shakhtyor Salihorsk (BLR) HK Shakhtyor Salihorsk is a very young club, as it was only founded seven years ago. The team plays its home games at the Ice Sports Palace in Salihorsk (meaning Salzberg in German), a city with 102.000 inhabitants. HK Shakhtsjor Salihorsk takes part in the Belarusian Extraliga.

In the first season after its founding in 2009, the team, which was the farm team of the KLH club Dinamo Minsk, immediately reached the playoff final of the championship, but then lost in the seventh, decisive game against Junost Minsk. In 2015, Shakhtyor Salihorsk took revenge with a smooth 4-0 final series against Junost and won the Belarusian championship for the first time. Last year, Shakhtyor Salihorsk was again runner-up behind Junost.

Striker Viktor Andrushchenko is the star of the team Shakhtyor Salihorsk has been trained by former Belarusian national coach Andre Gusov since the start of the season. The star of the team is 30-year-old striker Viktor Andrushchenko, who was in the squad in the year it was founded. With a total of 111 goals scored and 116 assists, he is the most successful Belarusian striker. Andrushchenko was actually born in Kiev, Ukraine, played in Ukraine's youth national teams until 2005, but has been a striker for the Belarusian national team since 2014.

The Canadian Nathan Robinson also joined the team this year. The former NHL player (he also played in Mannheim, Berlin and Cologne in the DEL and with the Vienna Capitals in the EBEL) moved from Slavia Prague to the Belarusians in the summer. Robinson is one of the club's six foreigners. Three come from Finland: Tony Vidgren (scored 2014 goals and 15 assists as a defender for Fassa in the 13-13 season), Lauri Kärmeniemi and Rasmus Kulmala. All three are former Finnish youth internationals. Goalkeeper Kevin Lindskoug is Swedish. The 24-year-old was signed specifically for the Continental Cup on All Saints Day. There is also the Latvian national player Edijs Brahmanis.

Eliminated in the third round of the Continental Cup last year HK Shakhtsjor Salihorsk made its debut in the Continental Cup last year, but was eliminated in the third round in France against hosts Rouen Dragons (0:1) and Polish champions GKS Tychy (1:2). The Belarusians' only win came against the Ukrainian club HK Kremenchuk (6:0).

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Continental Cup: The Rittner's opponents

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