Men’s EuroHockey Indoor Championship II-B (Oslo, Norway) – January 9 to 11, 2026
Norway will host a men’s EuroHockey Indoor Championship competition for the first time as II-B comes to the Klemetsrudhallen this weekend.
Six teams are competing in a single-group round-robin event with the winner earning promotion to the championship in 2027.
For the world ranked 43 host nation, they are playing in the third Euro indoors following a 2010 Challenge II in Rouen and then their fifth place finish in Paredes in 2024 in II-A.
The side is heavily based locally with four players from Oslo SK and three from the MASK club in Mortensrud.
Nicolai Leege (Marienthaler THC), Fredrik Helgetveit (TTK Sachsenwald) and Alexander Johnsen (Cambridge City) have experience beyond Norway while Arunpreet Singh Garcha was the top scorer in the Elite series last year. He returns to the international fold after a number of years away.
Greece (WR: 40) were seventh in Budapest in 2024 and will be seeking to move up the ranks with some new faces in their line-up.
They will feature five debutants with Cedwyn and Llewellyn Hochhauser, Elias Diringer, Paris Welzel and Konstantin von der Mülbe among the newcomers. Stavros Sideridis is the most experienced player, lining out for his fourth Euro campaign.
Greece
Italy – world ranked 27 – are a highly rated side and are looking to return to top division for first time since 2010 having just missed out on promotion in 2024 in Budapest to Türkiye.
In the lead-up, they produced strong performances in Ourense, beating Portugal twice with healthy margins to show their quality.
Teenagers Valerio Iossa, Giovanni Faggian and Gabriel Iossa are three rising stars in quite an experienced line-up in which captain Mattia Amorsini – now with DTV Hannover – will be a key figure.
Italy
Livewire Marcello Succi has scored 20 goals in his 11 indoor internationals.
Lithuania – ranked 39th – were third in Paredes in 2024, their best ever performances in Euro men’s competition and they arrive in Norway with a squad hailing from four separate cities: Vilnius, Rudamina, Širvintos and Šiauliai.
Povilas Sinkevičius, Rafal Stankevič and captain Andžej Burkot all currently play for clubs in Belgium while Mantvydas Pocevičius was recently named player of the tournament in the LZRF Cup final for HC Siauliai last month.
Lithuania
Sweden (unranked) are back in Euro indoor action for the first time since 2016. Back then, they played in the top tier in Prague where they finished in eigith place.
As such, they have an entirely new side with a wide range of ages with young players starting out combined with more experienced players and coach.
Their representation is spread from across the clubs in Sweden with five players from Partille, four from Valhalla, one each from Roslagens, Stockholm Lions and Nayan Lund.
Sweden
Ukraine (WR: 23) were relegated from the top division in 2024 in 10th place overall and so will be keen to try and fight for a place back at the top level.
They have nine of the team which lined out two years ago including captain Dmytro Luppa who has been part of the international setup for over 15 years.
The powerful Yurii Dzemukh, Oleksandr Boiko and goalkeeper Bohdan Yurkov are all set for their first senior international indoor tournament.
Friday, January 9 – match schedule
| Time | Teams | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 10:30 | UKR – SWE | Pool A |
| 12:00 | LTU – GRE | Pool A |
| 13:30 | ITA – NOR | Pool A |
| 16:00 | SWE – LTU | Pool A |
| 17:30 | ITA – GRE | Pool A |
| 19:00 | UKR – NOR | Pool A |
Ukraine
