After winning the Slovak Liga regular season, HC Kosice will be back in the Champions Hockey League for a third straight season, and everyone involved with the club is excited about that. 

by Tomas Schugerl

KOSICE – Two-time reigning Slovak Liga champions HC Kosice will once again represent Slovakia in the Champions Hockey League. The team from the eastern part of the country has won the regular season once again, achieving one of the team's pre-season goals. Up next is the first round of the playoffs, which they will begin at home. 

Kosice didn't have a good start to the season. They won just three of their first 10 league games and were sitting in 9th place. At that point, management sacked coach Peter Oremus and brought back Rostislav Cada, who guided the club to back-to-back national titles in 2010 and 2011. The team's fortunes improved and the team now enters the playoffs as the league's No. 1 seed. 

“Qualifying for the CHL for the third time means mostly that we are part of a representative selection of our big European hockey family. We are proud to be able to represent Slovakia. HC Kosice is becoming synonymous with Slovakian hockey in Europe, thanks to playing in the CHL,” said Juraj Bakos, the club's general manager. 

The club from “Slovak Hockeytown” performed well in it's first two CHL campaigns. In 2014–15, Kosice played in Group A with Karpat Oulu, Kolner Haie and Bili Tygri Liberec. The Slovak representative played well enough to get a pair of 4–3 wins over Liberec and Koln, and one point from a 3–2 shootout loss in Oulu. These seven points put Kosice 3rd place in the group. 

Then this season they were grouped with Red Bull Munich and KAC Klagenfurt. Kosice won both games against Klagenfurt (4–1 away and 2–1 after a shootout at home) and lost both against Munich (4–2 at home and 1–0 away) to finish 2nd in Group H. They qualified for the Round of 32, where they played a couple of great games against Swedish powerhouse Skelleftea AIK. Kosice pulled off a huge surprise in the first game at home overcoming 2–0 and 3–2 deficits to win 4–3, thanks to Adam Lapsansky's late goal. The team from northern Sweden did what they had to do in the second game, however, winning 3–0 at home to advance to the next round. 

“We view our participation in the CHL so far as positive in several aspects,” Bakos explained. “First of all, by accepting the idea of a transnational European competition, we have the possibility to exchange experiences with the most significant clubs in Europe, and not just on the ice rink. In the first couple years of the CHL, we played a lot of good games and won against great teams from developed hockey countries. We would be glad to see the competition realize its developing potential and we wish to be part of it over its next decade of development.”

It's really positive that club and also its fans take the CHL very seriously. Kosice had the CHL's fourth-highest attendance in 2014–15 with 4,698 spectators per game, and were the only team which had a higher average for the CHL than their domestic league. In 2015–16, 14,848 total fans attended their three home games for an average of 4,949. And it isn't just the number of fans that makes playing in Kosice a memorable experience, but the excitement of those fans. Even visiting players have positive things to say. 

“It was a really nice atmosphere here – almost 6,000 spectators – and it was nice to play in Kosice. We will see – maybe we will come back and play here again,” said Munich captain Michael Wolf after his team's group-stage game in Kosice back in August. 

With the start of the next CHL season still five months away, it isn't at the forefront of the players' minds right now. Right now, the task at hand is winning a third straight national title. If they do that, it would be their ninth Slovakian title to go along with two Czechoslovakian titles in 1986 and 1988. Those two titles led to appearances in the European Cup Finals in '87 and '89, and they've also taken gold and silver medals from the IIHF Continental Cup in 1998 and 1999, which shows that the club takes international play seriously.

“Firstly, we're really happy that all the hard work we did in the regular season has earned us a place in the CHL,” said captain Marek Bartanus. “Confrontation against other national leagues is very important if we want to improve. There are so many high-level leagues in Europe and having success against those teams in the CHL is very difficult. It's a great experience for every single player on our team.”