Swedish teams have triumphed in the elite men’s category of Chance Czech Open thirteen times already. And this year they will again be among the tournament favourites. We have already introduced three of the four representatives of the famous Swedish Superligan, and now we are going to focus our attention to the last of them, the tournament rookie IBF Falun.
In the past season Falun finished on the last play-off position after the regulation season. But still they managed to fight hard in five games in the quarterfinal series. In the last match they lost to AIK Stockholm by 4:8 and like last year they did not reach the semifinals.
“Falun has very strong offence. They strengthened their team and brought two young players from Västerås with incredible technical skills, Alexander Carlström and Christian Mattson. I’m really curious to see how their defence is going to work. Henrik Olsson has ended his career, I’ve returned to Tatran and there’s another defender injured,” says the Czech defenseman Milan Garčar.
The experienced national team defender knows Falun very well because he regularly played in their red jerseys in the past Superligan season. After the season in Sweden Garčar returned back to Tatran Střešovice and thanks to the tournament draw he can look forward to the mutual game against his former teammates from Sweden in the preliminary group stage already.
“I should be thankful for such a lucky draw; I’m really looking forward to the mutual game. I have many friends in Falun and it will be great to see them again after a few months. And whether Falun can win Chance Czech Open? I don’t know, they don’t have any experience with the tournament, like Caperiotäby last year. One loss in the play-offs and you’re out,” Milan Garčar added.
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