2008–09 Serie A (ice hockey) season

The season 2008/ 09 the Italian Hockey Championship Series A1 was discharged with a total of eight teams. Defending champion was the HC Bolzano, who could defend the championship title in the final against Ritten Sport. The HC Fassa could successfully prevent the playdowns relegation.

  • 4.1 Semi-finals
  • 4.2 final
  • 5.1 quarterfinals
  • 5.2 Semi-finals
  • 5.3 final

Participating teams

After the previous season, the HC Milano Vipers was unexpectedly dropped out of Serie A1, which greatest consternation caused in circles in the league, as the Milan came from a great crowd puller of a city with extensive hockey tradition. President Alvise di Canossa was this step on 12 June 2009 known and established him with the fact that the Italian Hockey did not develop as desired and he would see no future for the club. Financial reasons were not officially called.

This left ultimately following eight teams left:

  • HC Bolzano ( defending champion )
  • Ritten Sport
  • SG Cortina
  • HC Val Pusteria
  • AS Asiago Hockey
  • HC Alleghe
  • HC Fassa
  • SG Pontebba

Mode

In the base run, a triple round-trip round was played. The top four teams qualified for the playoffs, which were held in the form of semi-finals and finals as a Best of Seven series. The teams ranked five to eight contested a play down series. The among losing teams had in the next round. The loser of the last series was up against the winner of the series A2 to avoid relegation.

Regular season

Table after the regular season

Playoffs

The semi-final series were very one-sided in favor of the top two teams. Ritten Sport had only team suffered a defeat and was subject to HC Val Pusteria in the second game of the series with 2:3. The HC Bolzano won all four games for themselves, but had to go in the last two games in overtime. Thus, both series were terminated prematurely, and the two finalists had before the final series one weeks play.

Bolzano finally prevailed in the final case against the challenger with 4-0 victories over surprisingly clear through and let the Rittnern based on an excellent Pasi Häkkinen in goal no chance. Also of Legionnaires Kenny Corupe, which had previously been released early in the year from HDD Olimpija Ljubljana and since then rushed for Bolzano, could repeatedly exploit its class. The HC Bolzano won so the eighteenth league title in club history and had throughout the playoffs no game lost.

Semifinal

Final

Play Downs

In the playdowns, the fifth-placed AS Asiago Hockey secured with a 3-0 in the series ahead of the league and sent the SG Pontebba in the next round. The HC Alleghe had much more trouble with his opponent HC Fassa. After two wins in a row, the HC Fassa leveled again, so that the fifth game had to decide. There, however, the HC Alleghe finally sat through clearly.

The two losing teams played another best of five series. The SG Pontebba, who had completed the main round and the last one was just remained still against Asiago without a win, defeating the HC Fassa 3-1 victories and secured so also in the league. In the final of playdowns the losing HC Fassa competed against the winner of the series A2, the WSV Sterzing Broncos. Here, the team from the Serie A1 could argue with significant wins and thus ensure participation in the Serie A1 for next season.

Quarterfinals

Semifinal

Final

Statistics

The statistics cover the entire season off with regular season and playoffs.

Squad of the Italian master

Goalkeepers: Pasi Häkkinen, Andreas Bernard

Defender: Christian Borgatello, David Ceresa, Sergei Durdins, Alexander Egger, Viktors Ignatjevs, Carl Johan Johansson, Florian Ramoser

Attacker: Luca Ansoldi, Anton Bernard, Fraser Clair, Kenny Corupe, Enrico Dorigatti, Ryan Jardine, Josh Olson, Jonathan Pittis, Roland Ramoser, Jamie Schaafsma, Stefan Under Kofler, Christian Walcher, Stefan Zisser

Training team:

Developments after the season

In the summer of 2009 was for a short time an entry of HC Bolzano in the Austrian Hockey League in space, because there the HC Innsbruck had descended voluntarily and so only nine teams were left. The HC Bolzano had signaled cautious interest, but the club management initially wanted to secure a large enough budget in any case. However, the discussions were quickly fizzled, as the Italian Hockey Federation had announced to want to not agree to a withdrawal of the HC Bolzano with regard to the development of the Italian league for the time being. The future development is likely to be foreseeable at the earliest after the 2009/10 season.

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