PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Harsh criticism has been directed at hockey’s SM playoffs.
Now a new SHL club enters the discussion and wants to change the system.
– We don’t think it’s sustainable, says Luleå’s club director Stefan Enbom to NSD.
The SC playoffs are in full swing and four clubs remain in the race for this year’s Le Mat trophy. Växjö, Skellefteå AIK, Frölunda and Örebro are now chasing the coveted trophy and the title as Sweden’s best hockey team in 2023.
The SM finals
But alongside the ice, harsh criticism is also being directed at the entire SM play-offs and how the arrangement looks right now. Where you play every other game at home and away, in contrast to how both the NHL and HockeyAllsvenskan do with double home games and double away games in a row for the first four games of a playoff series.
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Skåne team Rögle reacted strongly when they went out against Norrland’s Skellefteå in the quarter-finals after six games. There the club director Daniel Koch was highly critical of the playoff structure and now a new club enters the debate.
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Criticism of the SHL
Luleå recently had to leave the SM play-offs in the quarter-finals after seven games against Växjö Lakers. Now the club director vents Stefan Enbom his dissatisfaction with the arrangement in the playoffs and how incredibly expensive it is for the club with all the travel around Sweden.
– There was hardly anything left over either for Växjö or us because it is extremely expensive to use charter flights, says Enbom to the local newspaper NSD.
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The Luleå manager announces that the average cost of a chartered flight lands at around half a million kroner, and since the matches are played every other day, it becomes both stressful and expensive to book the flights.
Now want to change
Now the club wants to do exactly like Rögle and change the structure to what the NHL and HockeyAllsvenskan use with home, home, away, away, home, away, home.
– We have 100 percent the same opinion as they (Rögle) have. We do not think it is environmentally sustainable to run a charter circus. In addition, it will be incredibly expensive. Historically, the playoffs have always been our way of making a good financial result. But if, as it is now, you have to pay half a million to take a charter flight, there won’t be many kroner left over, says Enbom in the interview.
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If the SHL changes the structure in the SM playoffs, it would result in significantly lower costs for all teams.
– They will be significantly lower. Then we can probably also go regularly to a higher degree. There are millions of savings in a playoff for the club, says the club director to the newspaper.
This question will be taken up for discussion before the upcoming SHL season and Luleå now hopes to be able to bring the majority of clubs in the Swedish top flight.
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