A round-up of the EuroHockey Indoor Club Challenge II, Slovenia.
Challenge II has been full of unpredictable games, excitement and increasing level of hockey as some of the teams are gaining some of their first international experience.Highway HC from Turkey has a bit of a bumby start, but recovered fast and has a winning streak of 5 wins out of 5. Unfortunate for Highway, they are not able to promote due to 2015 withdrawals, but that has not taken away their spirit and motivation.
The hosting team Priglav Predanovci started out win a big win against the newcomers Anavryta from Greece and kept their game going, only to loose 1 game against the top team from Turkey, leaving nnot doubt in the rest. Saturday evening they had an exciting game against the current 4th rank team Elektrovojvodina from Serbia, a game where the host showed great spirit, getting back from 2-3 and taking the game to 7-4 at the end.
Epitok from Hungary has a long record in international club tournaments and are currently fighting with Priglav and Elektrovojvodina for one of the two promotion places. With 3 wins and 1 loss they are still very much in the run and will face the host in todays crucial last game of the tournament.
Elektrovojvodina has shown some great skills and good hockey and a trailing just behind the top-3 teams together with Kutaisi from Georgia, who, despite having only 8 players and had to lend goalkeeper equipment from the host, at still very much in the game.
Both Aker from Norway and Anavryta from Greece are newcomers to international club tournaments and have squads that are on a learning curve indoorwise.
Aker got the only win of the tournament so far in the first game against Anavryta, who are stills fighting for their first win. Aker has proved to be a strong opponent also for the top teams.
Anavryta got close in the last game against Kutaisi, but could not convert an overtime penalty corner and lost by 2-3.
All games here: https://eurohockey.altiusrt.com/competitions/37/reports/matches