The 2012 European Trophy was the third

European Trophy European Trophy (previously named ''Nordic Trophy'' between 2006 and 2009) was an annually held ice hockey tournament, traditionally composed of teams from the higher-level ice hockey leagues in countries across Europe. With 32 participating team ...

, a European

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

tournament held annually. It is also the seventh tournament since its predecessor, the ''Nordic Trophy'', was launched in 2006. The regulation round started on 31 July 2012 with the South Division game between

Piráti Chomutov Piráti Chomutov is a Czech ice hockey team from Chomutov, Czech Republic. Established as ČSK Chomutov in 1945, the team has played in Chomutov through numerous team name changes and elevations/relegations in the Czechoslovak and Czech hockey l ...

– Slovan Bratislava, and will end on 28 November 2012. The playoffs will be played between 13 and 16 December 2012 in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

and in

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

. The preliminary schedule for the regulation round was released on 12 April 2012. In this year's tournament the number of participating teams was increased from 24 to 32. Also, as Red Bull Salzburg no longer hosted the playoffs for the first time in European Trophy history, they weren't guaranteed a playoff spot. Of the 128 regular round games, 20 were played mid-season (i.e. after teams had started their league seasons in their respective countries). Regarding the playoffs, there were only Quarterfinals, Semifinals as well as the Final game, meaning that the losing teams in each round were immediately eliminated from the tournament. On 31 May 2012,

Slavia Praha Sportovní klub Slavia Praha – fotbal (Sports Club Slavia Prague – Football, ), commonly known as Slavia Praha or Slavia Prague, is a Czech professional football club in Prague. Founded in 1892, they are the second most successful club in t ...

announced that they were pulling out of the tournament. On 18 June it was announced that

would take over Slavia Praha's spot in the South Division.

Tournament format

The 32 teams in the tournament are, partly based on geographical location, divided into four divisions: the West Division, the

North Division Northern Division or North Division can refer to: Sports * Northern Division (Rugby Union) Leagues of England * Queensland Rugby League Northern Division * Southern League Northern Division of the Southern Football League in England * FA Women's ...

, the

South Division South Division may refer to: * South Division (AFL), a division of the Arena Football League * South Division (MPBL), a division of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League * South Division (CFL), a former division of the Canadian Football League ...

, and the East Division. Each division consists of 8 teams who will play a round-robin in their division, with an extra game against a local rival in their division, giving a total of 8 games per team. Each team is assigned four home games as well as four road games. The top two teams of each division qualify for the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

; however, should Slovan Bratislava and/or

Vienna Capitals The Vienna Capitals are an Austrian professional ice hockey team that participate in the ICE Hockey League. Founded in 2001, the Capitals play their home games in Vienna, Austria, at Steffl Arena. In the 2004–05 season, the Capitals claimed ...

qualify for the playoffs as hosts (if they fail to reach one of the top two spots of the South Division), they will replace the worst second ranked team(s) out of all four divisions. Should at least two teams in the same division (or second-ranked teams) end up tied in points, the following tie-breaker format will be used: #Best

goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

#Most goals scored in total (goals forward) #Results in games against the tied teams # Drawing of lots This tie-breaker format will also apply when determining which second-ranked team(s) to be replaced if the host teams Slovan Bratislava and/or

fail to reach the playoffs by finishing top two in the South Division.

Playing format

If a game is tied after regulation time (60 minutes), an

overtime Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways: *by custom (what is considered healthy or reasonable by society) ...

lasting for 5 minutes is played. During overtime, both teams substitute only 4 players on the ice at once (except for 3 when either of the teams has a penalized player). If no team scores during the overtime period, a

shootout A shootout, also called a firefight, gunfight, or gun battle, is a confrontation in which parties armed with firearms exchange gunfire. The term can be used to describe any such fight, though it is typically used in a non-military context or to ...

is played, starting with three penalty shots for both teams. If the shootout remains tied after the first three rounds, sudden death rounds are played until a winning team has been forced. In the regulation round games, the teams get three points for a regulation-time victory, two points for an overtime/shootout win, one point for losing in overtime/shootout, and zero points for a regulation loss.

Prize money

After the regulation round, the four division winners received

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

25 000 each, the four second-placed teams €20 000, and the third, fourth and fifth team of each division received €15 000, €10 000, and €5 000, respectively. Additionally, in the final of the Red Bulls Salute, the winning team received €50 000, while the losing finalist got €10 000. In total, €360 000 was given out during the entire tournament.

Participating clubs

*Note (*): the stated home arenas don't have to be used in the European Trophy tournament. *Note (**):

SC Bern Schlittschuh Club Bern ('' Ice-skating Club Bern'' in English) is a professional ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rin ...

and

ZSC Lions The Zürcher Schlittschuh Club Lions are a professional ice hockey team located in Zürich, Switzerland, playing in the National League (NL). Their home arena is the 12,000-seat Swiss Life Arena. The team was founded in 1930 and played at the ...

did not participate in 2011. *Note (***):

pulled out of the tournament just two months before the first games are to be played.

are replacing Slavia Praha.

Rivalries

*West Division **Jokerit vs. HIFK **Frölunda Indians vs. Färjestad BK **Adler Mannheim vs. ERC Ingolstadt **ZSC Lions vs. EV Zug *North Division **Luleå HF vs. Oulun Kärpät **Hamburg Freezers vs. Eisbären Berlin **Kometa Brno vs. Plzeň 1929 **České Budějovice vs. Red Bull Salzburg *South Division **KalPa vs. JYP **Linköpings HC vs. HV71 **Piráti Chomutov vs. Sparta Praha **Vienna Capitals vs. Slovan Bratislava *East Division **Tappara vs. TPS **Brynäs IF vs. Djurgårdens IF **Bílí Tygři Liberec vs. Pojišťovna Pardubice **SC Bern vs. Fribourg-Gottéron

Regulation round

West Division

Games in Finland are

UTC+3 UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a UTC offset, time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours ahead of the Coordinated Universal Time, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Following the ISO 8601 standard, ...

, while all other games are

UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. As standard time (year-round) Principal cities: Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Por ...

, except the 28 October game which is

UTC+1 +01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time * West Africa Time * Western European Summer Time **Brit ...

North Division

Games in Finland are

, while all other games are

, except the November games which are

South Division

Games in Finland are

, while all other games are

, except the November game which is

East Division

Games in Finland are

, while all other games are

, except the November games which are

Playoff team seeds

Playoff hosts Slovan Bratislava and

qualify automatically. Four division-winners qualify. After this, best-scoring division-runners-up qualify to bring the number to exactly eight. Winners of divisions: * West:

Färjestad BK Färjestad Bollklubb (; abbreviated as FBK) is a Swedish professional ice hockey team based in Karlstad. Färjestad has had 21 Swedish Championship final appearances, winning ten times since the Swedish Hockey League (SHL; formerly Elitserie ...

* North:

Luleå HF Luleå Hockeyförening, also known as Luleå Hockey, is a professional ice hockey club from Luleå, Sweden. The club has been playing in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), the top tier of ice hockey in Sweden, since the 1984–85 season. They are ...

* South:

HV71 HV71 (), often referred to as just HV, is a Swedish professional ice hockey club based in Jönköping, playing in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), the first tier of Swedish ice hockey. The team played in the 2008–09 Champions Hockey League ...

* East:

Tappara Tappara (; Finnish language, Finnish for "Battle axe") is a Finnish professional ice hockey team playing in the SM-liiga. They play at ''Nokia Arena (Tampere), Nokia Arena'' in Tampere, Finland. The team has won 20 Finnish league championships, wh ...

Runners-up of divisions:

Playoffs

The playoffs, known as the ''

Red Bull Red Bull is a brand of energy drinks created and owned by the Austrian company Red Bull GmbH. With a market share of 43%, it is the most popular energy drink brand as of 2020, and the third most valuable soft drink brand, behind Coca-Cola and ...

s Salute'', will take place in the Albert Schultz Eishalle,

and in the

Slovnaft Arena Slovnaft is an oil refining company in Slovakia. The company, located in Bratislava, is a subsidiary of MOL Group. History Slovnaft is the successor of the Apollo company. Apollo was established in 1895 in Bratislava. Its refinery was bomba ...

between 13 and 16 December 2012, with the Final game taking place in Slovnaft Arena. It will be played as a

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, ...

, meaning that the losing teams in each round are eliminated from the tournament. For the first time in Red Bulls Salute history, no classification/placement games will be played, so there will only be Quarterfinals, Semifinals as well as the Final game. The winner of the Red Bulls Salute will be awarded a total prize sum of

50 000, and the losing finalist receives €10 000.

Bracket

The non-home teams will be seeded according to their score in the regulation round.

Quarterfinals

All times are local (

). The quarterfinal matchups will be determined by the regulation-round record of the six playoff teams aside from the two automatically qualified hosts Slovan Bratislava and

. The top-ranked team of these six teams will face the sixth-ranked team; the second-ranked team will face the fifth-ranked team; the third-ranked team will face Vienna Capitals; and the fourth-ranked team will face Slovan Bratislava.

Semifinals

All times are local (

). For quarterfinal numbering, see the

bracket A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

above.

Final

Time is local (

Ranking and statistics

Tournament awards

Final standings

The following is the final standings of the playoffs. However, note that because there weren't any classification/placement games in this year's playoffs, the standings for the six teams that missed the Final game were ranked on the following criteria: A. whether the team made it to the Semifinal or not, and B. the team's regulation round record. {, class="wikitable" style="width:200px;" , - style="background:gold;" , align=center, , ,

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Eisbären Berlin The Eisbären Berlin (; English: ''Berlin Polar Bears'') is a professional ice hockey team based in Berlin, Germany. The team competes in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL), the highest level of play in professional German ice hockey, and is also ...

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Brynäs IF Brynäs IF is a Swedish professional ice hockey team from Gävle. The club currently plays in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), promoted from the HockeyAllsvenskan, the second tier of ice hockey in Sweden, following the 2023–24 season. The ...

Scoring leaders

List shows the top skaters sorted by points, then goals. If the list exceeds 10 skaters because of a tie in points, all of the tied skaters are shown. {, class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center;" , - ! style="width: 12em;" , Player ! style="width: 13em;" , Team ! style="width: 4em;" , GP ! style="width: 4em;" , G ! style="width: 4em;" , A ! style="width: 4em;" , Pts ! style="width: 4em;" , PIM ! style="width: 4em;" , POS , - , style="text-align:left;", Matt Foy , ,

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David Hruška David Hruška (born January 8, 1977) is a Czech professional ice hockey right winger for HC Stadion Cheb of the Czech 2.liga. He was selected by the Ottawa Senators in the 6th round (131st overall) of the 1995 NHL Entry Draft. Hruška played ...

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, , 3 , , 2 , , 3 , , 5 , , 6 , , F , - , style="text-align:left;", Niklas Olausson , ,

, , 2 , , 1 , , 4 , , 5 , , 2 , , F , - , style="text-align:left;",

Cam Abbott Cameron Abbott (born October 24, 1983) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player, who predominantly played with Luleå HF of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) and now serves as the head coach of the Chicago Wolves of the AHL. Playing c ...

, ,

, , 2 , , 3 , , 1 , , 4 , , 25 , , F , - , style="text-align:left;", Tomáš Urban , , Bílí Tygři Liberec , , 3 , , 3 , , 1 , , 4 , , 4 , , F , - , style="text-align:left;", Milan Kraft , ,

, , 3 , , 3 , , 1 , , 4 , , 2 , , F , - , style="text-align:left;", Jason Lepine , , JYP , , 2 , , 2 , , 2 , , 4 , , 0 , , D , - , style="text-align:left;",

Jerome Flaake Jerome Flaake (born 2 March 1990) is a German professional ice hockey left winger who is currently an unrestricted free agent. He most recently played under contract with Krefeld Pinguine of the DEL2. Playing career Flaake started playing ice ...

, ,

Hamburg Freezers The Hamburg Freezers were a professional men's ice hockey club from Hamburg, Germany that played in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. The club announced its withdrawal from the DEL and ceased operations on 24 May 2016 when Anschutz Entertainment Group, ...

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Toni Kähkönen Toni Kähkönen is a Finnish professional ice hockey forward who currently plays for KooKoo in the Liiga. He previously played in his native Finland with Espoo Blues, where he served as captain, and Oulun Kärpät of the Liiga The Liiga, collo ...

, ,

Oulun Kärpät Oulun Kärpät (Finnish language, Finnish for "Oulu Stoat, Ermines", sometimes referred to as Kärpät Oulu) is a Finnish professional ice hockey team based in Oulu and playing in the top-tier Finnish Liiga. Kärpät have won the Finnish champion ...

, , 2 , , 2 , , 2 , , 4 , , 0 , , F ''GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; PIM = Penalties in minutes; POS = Position
positions: F = Forward; D = Defenceman''
Sources
Europeantrophy.com
an

Updated as of 19 August 2012.

Leading goaltenders

Only the top five goaltenders, based on save percentage, who have played 40% of their team's minutes, are included in this list. {, class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center;" , - ! style="width:170px;", Player ! style="width:130px;", Team ! style="width:60px;", TOI ! style="width:50px;", SA ! style="width:50px;", GA ! style="width:60px;", GAA ! style="width:60px;", Sv% ! style="width:50px;", SO , - , style="text-align:left;",

Chet Pickard Chet Pickard ( ; born November 29, 1989) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender. He most notably played in the American Hockey League and the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL). He holds a German passport. Playing career Pickard play ...

, ,

Djurgårdens IF Djurgårdens Idrottsförening, commonly known simply as Djurgårdens IF, Djurgården (), and (especially locally) Djurgår'n (), Dif or DIF – is a Swedish sports association with several sections, located in Stockholm. Djurgårdens IF is an s ...

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Joni Ortio Joni Ortio (born April 16, 1991) is a Finnish professional ice hockey goaltender who plays for HC Ässät Pori of the Liiga, Finnish Elite League. He has previously played for the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was a sixt ...

, ,

HIFK HIFK, the Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna, Helsingfors (IFK, Helsingfors) rf (officially abbreviated IFK Helsingfors, colloquially often Helsingfors IFK or Helsingin IFK) is a multi-sport association based in Helsinki, Finland. Formed in 1897 on ...

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Tomi Karhunen Tomi Karhunen (born 29 October 1989) is a Finnish professional ice hockey goaltender. He is currently playing with Oulun Kärpät of the Finnish Liiga. Playing career Karhunen made his SM-liiga debut playing with Oulun Kärpät during the 2010 ...

, ,

, , 60:46 , , 44 , , 1 , , 0.99 , , 97.73 , , 0 ''TOI = Time on ice (minutes:seconds); SA = Shots against; GA = Goals against; GAA = Goals against average; Sv% = Save percentage; SO =

Shutout In team sports, a shutout (North American English, US) or clean sheet (Commonwealth English, UK) is a game in which the losing team fails to score. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketba ...

s''
Sources
Europeantrophy.com
an

Updated as of 19 August 2012.

European Star Award leaders

The ''European Star Award'' is a three stars award given to the three best players in each game. The first star gets three points, the second gets two points, and the third gets one point. List shows the top ten players based on the number of European Star Award points. {, class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center;" , - ! style="width: 12em;" , Player ! style="width: 13em;" , Team ! style="width: 4em;" , GP ! style="width: 4em;" , Pts ! style="width: 4em;" , POS , - , style="text-align:left;", Matt Foy , ,

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Ryan Glenn Ryan Glenn (born June 7, 1980) is a Canadians, Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman who has played for several teams in Europe. He was selected by the Montreal Canadiens in the 5th round (145th overall) of the 2000 NHL Entry Draft. After pl ...

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Byron Ritchie Byron Ritchie (born April 24, 1977) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey forward. He was born in Burnaby, British Columbia, and grew up in North Delta, British Columbia. Ritchie saw action in a total of 332 games in the NHL and also pla ...

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Ari Vallin Ari Vallin (born March 21, 1978) is a Finnish former professional ice hockey defenceman. In summer 2015, he was transferred from Oulun Kärpät to KooKoo. In the 2003–2004 SM-liiga playoff finals in Finland against TPS TPS or Tps may refer to ...

, ,

Sparta Praha Athletic Club Sparta Praha (), commonly known as Sparta Prague and Sparta Praha, is a professional football club based in Prague. It is the most successful club in the Czech Republic and one of the most successful in central Europe, winning t ...

, , 1 , , 3 , , D ''GP = Games played; Pts = Points; POS = Position
positions: G = Goaltender; F = Forward; D = Defenceman''
Source
Europeantrophy.com

Updated as of 19 August 2012.

References

{{2012–13 European club competitions 1 European Trophy