Victoria Cup

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This article is about the ice-hockey tournament. For the Australian harness race, see Victoria Cup (harness race).

The Victoria Cup will be an annual game or series of games played between professional ice hockey teams from Europe and the North American National Hockey League (NHL). In 2008, the inaugural Cup will be a single game playoff between the 2008 European Champions Cup winner and an NHL club. In subsequent years teams of the European Champions Hockey League will play one or more NHL challengers in an undetermined format. The winner of the Cup will receive 1,000,000 Swiss francs.^[1]

The Victoria Cup was announced in 2007 as one of the highlight events to celebrate 2008, the 100th Year Anniversary of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). The cup is named after the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, Canada, where the first recorded organised indoor ice hockey game was played on March 3, 1875.

[edit] 2008 Victoria Cup

Main article: 2008 Victoria Cup

On October 1, 2008, the first Victoria Cup will be awarded to the winner of a single game between the winner of the 2008 European Champions Cup, Metallurg Magnitogorsk, and the New York Rangers of the NHL,^[2] to be played at the PostFinance Arena in Bern, Switzerland. The game will be played under IIHF rules.^[3]

The match will be preceded by an exhibition game on September 30, 2008 between host SC Bern and the New York Rangers. This will be the first time a Swiss club will play an NHL team.^[3] The Rangers will follow the Victoria Cup game with two NHL regular-season games against the Tampa Bay Lightning team in Prague, Czech Republic on October 4 and October 5 at the Sazka Arena.^[4]