ZSC Zurich Takes Champions League Title, Will Face NHL Squad in Victoria Cup

ZSC Lions Zurich defeated Metallurg Magnitigorsk of the KHL 5-0 in the second leg of the Champions Hockey League Final, taking the title by an aggregate score of 7-2. That's Zurich's Domenico Pittis celebrating the inaugural CHL title with the Silver Stone Trophy -- one that comes along with a bonus of 1 million Swiss Francs for the franchise. Click here to see the final goal as well as the postgame celebration.

In a twist that will sound familiar to longtime fans of the Washington Capitals, Zurich was forced to play the "home" leg of the series 21 miles outside of the city at the rink of one of their Swiss League counterparts. As it turned out, their home rink in Zurich was making final preparations for a figure skating show and wasn't available. In any case, Zurich seemed to shake it off easily, and was never seriously challenged by Metallurg.

Of more immediate concern to hockey fans in North America, Zurich will now face an NHL team to be named later in the second edition of the Victoria Cup, which will be played in Bern, Switzerland in October. You might recall that the aforementioned Metallurg squad lost the inaugural edition of the Victoria Cup to the New York Rangers, 4-3, immediately before the start of the regular season. We already know that six NHL teams will be making the trip to Europe to open up the 2009-10 NHL regular season. With more time to plan, one would think that the league would do their level best to match Zurich against the recently-crowned Stanley Cup champion. Stay tuned.

ZSC Zurich Takes Champions League Title, Will Face NHL Squad in Victoria Cup originally appeared on NHL FanHouse on Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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