The battle for promotion begins on Friday morning with eight clubs contesting the men’s EuroHockey Indoor Club Trophy at the Lokomotiv stadium in Plzeň, Czechia.
The top two earn promotion for their country up to the top tier for 2025. Pool A features 2023 Challenge I winner AD Lousada from Portugal, the recently crowned winners in Ireland (Three Rock Rovers) and Switzerland (Rotweiss Wettingen) and Swedish newcomers Roslagens IF.
Pool B, meanwhile, has the hosts TJ Plzen-Litice who retained the Czech title in dramatic fashion. They play Denmark’s Copenhagen – back after a 34-year gap – Ukraine’s OKS SHVSM Vinnitsa and Scotland’s Western Wildcats.
** Follow all the scores from the event here: https://eurohockey.altiusrt.com/competitions/324
Men’s EuroHockey Indoor Club Trophy (Plzeň, Czechia – Friday, February 16 to Sunday, February 18)
Pool A
AD Lousada (Portugal)
AD Lousada are competing in the second tier of European indoor club competition for the eighth time having earned promotion back up with gold at the 2023 Challenge which they hosted.
They arrive in Plzeň following another national title, defeating Casa Pia 11-5 in the final four weeks ago. Since then, José Serôdio Santos and Afonso Caramalho were called into their national team for their historic seventh place finish in Leuven.
Their entry list features plenty of experienced faces like Carlos Almeida, Helder Gonçalves and captain Ricardo Teixeira potentially leading the way.
Rotweiss Wettingen (Switzerland)
Rotweiss Wettingen are one of Europe’s frequent visitors with this being their 15th men’s indoor club campaign.
They feature Swiss national players Michel Morard and Fabio Marelli in what is still a young team. With their wealth of experience from countless international tournaments, they will lead their line.
The upcoming youngster is Erio Bachofen who is one of the fastest defensive players in Switzerland. All the players in this squad already took part in the EHL tournament in Barcelona in October 2023.
The finals of the Swiss Championship took place in December last year which – under the coaching of Nicolas Steffen and Manuel Keller – they won with a nice performance against HC Olten and GC Zürich.
After that, they played in the Rohrmax Cup in Vienna, where they were able to improve their skills further in January.
“We want to develop further and are always hungry to win,” says coach Steffen.
Roslagens IF (Sweden)
Roslagens IF won the Swedish title for the very first time last season to earn their spot this season in the competition indoors, scoring twice in the last minute to win their grand final. Key in front of goal for them will be Ruben Björn, Simon Ponten, and Emil Olausson.
As such, it is an entirely new event for the club. Their preparations saw them play in the Mason Cup in January in Denmark where they finished in seventh place, closing out the competition with an impressive 4-0 win over Odin.
Prior to this, they made their outdoor debut at the Challenge II in Gibraltar in 2022 when they finished seventh.
Three Rock Rovers (Ireland)
Three Rock Rovers are looking to build on the incredible start to 2024 for Irish hockey. Their entry follows hot on the heels of the outdoor men’s Olympic qualification while both the men’s and women’s national indoor teams made major breakthroughs in the past two weeks to earn promotion to the top level.
For Three Rock, they are playing in the second club tier for a third successive campaign, having ended a 28-year wait for an Irish club side to do so in 2020.
They finished in sixth place that year and then again in 2023 in Mannheim, staying up in dramatic fashion.
Captain Ross Canning is Ireland’s most experienced international and top-scored last week at the EuroHockey Indoor Championship II in Portugal. He was joined there by midfield terrier Jody Hosking and forward James Walker as they made history, winning the tournament to land a place for Ireland in the top level for the first time.
Ali Haughton was a reserve for that panel while Ben Ryder and Ryan Williams – an Irish Under-18 outdoor panelist – are in the development panel who played in the Mason Cup in January.
The rest of the panel hail from far and wide who have since moved to Ireland. It includes former Great Britain and Wales international James Kyriakides who plays his second European tournament for the club since relocating to Ireland; Czechia and ex-Slavia Prague goalkeeper František Svoboda and South African Under-21 Zeke Hougaard.
German youngster Christoph Geyer attends the local St Columba’s College while Jonas Althusmann returns for a third Euro tournament with the club.
Pool B
Copenhagen HC (Denmark)
HC Copenhagen, established in 1904 are the oldest hockey club in Scandinavia but have not played in a European indoor competition since 1990 in Amiens, making this a nice return for the club.
Among the key men are Jesper Jonasson who is captain of the Danish national team and a big reason why KH are playing Eurohockey Indoor in ’24. Copenhagen were 1-4 down at half time in the Danish Indoor final in 2023 but ‘JJ’ took responsibility and scored the four goals to help become champions of Denmark.
Tobias Grand is another long term member of the Danish national team and previously topped the scoring for Sweden’s Partille SC and won European Indoor gold in 2019.
Jacob Gordon joined two seasons ago and, in a short space of time, has become an important defender for both Copenhagen and the Danish national team.
Rasmus Mundeling has a longer history, joining as a 10-year-old and is very proud to be Captain of his hometown club. His combination of high standards, good humour and local pride ensure a great team environment and provide a great role model for young players at the club.
Copenhagen prepared by playing in The Mason Cup tournament in January, taking on the Danish national team and an Irish development panel, beating the latter in a third place playoff.
Coach Jeffrey Retslov says of the tournament: “We place discipline above all else and use a family ethos to forge the unity necessary at this level of Hockey. Copenhagen are lucky to have a group of players and coaches who share a love of the game and a willingness to do their best for their team mates, club and city.”
OKS-SHVSM Vinnitsa (Ukraine)
Ukraine have had a difficult preparation phase with many of their team involved in January’s outdoor Olympic qualifiers before moving indoors for the indoor international championship in Leuven.
Nonetheless, it brings them a lot of game-readiness. Key players are likely to be Mykhailo Yasinskyio and Yurii Moroz who have great experience while Maksym Onofriuk and Volodymyr Kaplinskyi are their key young players.
TJ Plzeň-Litice (Czechia)
TJ Plzeň-Litice is enjoying a special time in its club history as the current Czechia indoor and outdoor national champions, playing in the EHL last October for the first time.
And this will be their first attempt on the indoor Euro stage – they have competed three times outdoors – with the hosting rights also in place.
Key man is the towering figure of Adam Uhlíř who captains both his club and the international side. They recently retained their national title in the most dramatic fashion with Ondrej Hes scoring a last second equaliser to send the final against Bohemians to shoot-out. There, after several rounds of missed efforts, they scored the all-important winner via Jakub Koryták.
In the group stage, they meet Western Wildcats who they also played in the EHL KO16.
Western Wildcats (Scotland)
Western Wildcats have had a great deal of success in the last few seasons. Having won back to back domestic trebles, securing both indoor and outdoor national titles in successive seasons.
Western were promoted from Lousada last year and are looking to compete again in Plzen.
Key players consist of veteran goalkeeper Gavin Sommerville who has represented Scotland in indoor and outdoor formats. Jamie Golden, Andrew McConnell, Joe McConnell and Andrew McAllister all have Scotland indoor experience in recent years too. This coupled with our outdoor senior internationals, Rob Harwood, Callum Duke, Hamish Galt and Fraser Moran creates an excellent squad of experience.
Captain Harwood said of the event: “We are extremely excited to compete in Plzen, having successfully been promoted last year. With another indoor campaign under our belts and strong additions to the squad we are in great shape. Our goal is to compete and look to finish as high up the ladder as we can- we are confident we can make a mark at this competition.”
