Euro Hockey Tour

The Euro Hockey Tour (EHT) is an annual ice hockey tournament only open to the national men's teams of the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia and Sweden. Most of the teams use the competition as a preparation for the upcoming World Championships or Olympics, allowing less experienced players to collect valuable ice time in their national colours.

Playing format

EHT consists of four tournaments: Karjala Tournament in Finland, Channel One Cup in Russia, Oddset Hockey Games in Sweden, and Kajotbet Hockey Games in the Czech Republic. Each team plays three games in each of the tournaments, giving a total of twelve games per team. After the four tournaments have finished, the teams are seeded according to their respective combined point total from all four tournaments.

In each tournament, five games are played in the host city, and one game in another participating country. For example, in the 2007 edition of Karjala Tournament, the game between Sweden and Russia was played in Jönköping, Sweden, rather than in Finland, who host the Karjala Cup. Every country is assigned one home game and one away game in those games.

Euro

The euro (sign: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of the eurozone, which consists of 19 of the 28 member states of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. The currency is also officially used by the institutions of the European Union and four other European countries, as well as unilaterally by two others, and is consequently used daily by some 337 million Europeans as of 2015. Outside of Europe, a number of overseas territories of EU members also use the euro as their currency.

Additionally, 210 million people worldwide as of 2013 use currencies pegged to the euro. The euro is the second largest reserve currency as well as the second most traded currency in the world after the United States dollar.As of August 2014, with more than €995,000,000,000 in circulation, the euro has the highest combined value of banknotes and coins in circulation in the world, having surpassed the U.S. dollar. Based on International Monetary Fund estimates of 2008 GDP and purchasing power parity among the various currencies, the eurozone is the second largest economy in the world.

Hockey

Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick. In many areas, one sport (typically field hockey or ice hockey) is generally referred to simply as hockey.

Etymology

The first recorded use of the word hockey is in the 1773 book Juvenile Sports and Pastimes, to Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of the Author: Including a New Mode of Infant Education by Richard Johnson (Pseud. Master Michel Angelo), whose chapter XI was titled "New Improvements on the Game of Hockey". The belief that hockey was mentioned in a 1363 proclamation by King Edward III of England is based on modern translations of the proclamation, which was originally in Latin and explicitly forbade the games "Pilam Manualem, Pedivam, & Bacularem: & ad Canibucam & Gallorum Pugnam". The English historian and biographer John Strype did not use the word "hockey" when he translated the proclamation in 1720.

The word hockey itself is of unknown origin. One explanation is that it is a derivative of hoquet, a Middle French word for a shepherd's stave. The curved, or "hooked" ends of the sticks used for hockey would indeed have resembled these staves. Another explanation is that the cork bungs that replaced wooden balls in the 18th century came from barrels containing "hock" ale, also called "hocky".

Karjala Tournament

Karjala Tournament, also known as Karjala Cup, is an annual ice hockey event held in Finland. The name comes from the sponsoring beer brand Karjala ("Karelia").

History

The tournament started in 1992 as the Sauna Cup and has been part of the Euro Hockey Tour (EHT) in which Czech Republic, Finland, Russia and Sweden participate since 1996. It is usually held in the first year of each EHT season, with the exception of 2002 when two Karjala Tournaments were held in the same year but were both part of different EHT seasons.

Karjala Tournament winners

Winner, runner-up and third place is determined by total standing after a round-robin style of play. If teams are tied in points, the standing is determined by won games between the tied teams.

Statistics

Medal count

References