The one about potential VHLE cities

[leafsman 207]

I am looking forward to seeing how my next players VHLE career goes.  As uhtred is set to retire next week I will get to experience th VHLE in the near future.  I will throw out some cities for the VHL  My first player in the VHL was an Italian so that will be my first proposal.  Midway through the article I decided to go with a theme of most successful teams in some lesser known hockey countries.

 

Italy
Italy is not known for hockey at all but it would be a great place to live and work for a young hockey player.  One of my favorite cities in the world is Rome but I think the VHLE should go with smaller cities.  However if Rome was chosen then the team should be called the gladiators. 

 The Amalfi coast is my favourite part of Italy but it's probably not suitable for a hockey team.  It's a beautiful area of the country but it's too full of tourists and it's filled with lots of winding roads.  If a VHLE team goes to Italy it would be a great place for players to spend their offseason.

The Italian city I would nominate for the VHLE would be Bolzano.  Bolzano is an alpine town  situated in northern Italy.  It was recently tied with Bologna as the best place to live in Italy.  Bolzano also has a rich hockey history as the Bolzano foxes are the most successful Italian team. They have won the most Serie A titles and have played in the EBEL (ICE league as it's called now)  which features teams mainly from Austria.  Since moving to the EBEL/ICE in 2013 they have 2 titles losing in the finals this year to the next team on the list.

 

Austria
Doing the research on Bolzano which is the only Italian hockey team I've hear of before I came across the top Austrian team, Klagenfurt.  Klagenfurt is the most successful Austrian hockey teams with 32 titles including this year's victory over Bolzano.  Klagenfurt is the sixth largest city in Austria and would be a fine choice for an Austrian representative in the VHLE.

 

Germany
I didn't start this article with a theme of the best real life hockey teams but now that I've done that for Austria and Italy so why not do the same in Germany.  The most successful team in the DEL is the Berlin Polar Bears who have won 8 titles and are current Champions.  They are also won 15 titles in the east German hockey League before reunification.  As the largest city in both Germany and the EU Berlin would make a fine choice for a VHLE team.

 

France
France is not known for hockey but to go along with the theme of this article the best team in France is Chamonix HC.  Chamonix has won 30 titles but the team folded back in 2016 after over 100 years in French hockey.  Chamonix is an alpine town and was the first ever host of the winter Olympics in 1924.  It's a small city in France but a great ski resort area so probably not a best fit for a VHLE team.

I will finish this article by ranking the teams proposed above.

 

1) My first choice would be Berlin as it's a large city in Germany and I think Germany should definitely get a team. Germany has flown up the international hockey rankings lately sitting currently in 5th and doesn't have a VHL team.

 

2)Bolzano would be my next choice as with Italian heritage it would be great to have an Italian team in the league.  My first ever VHL player was from there so would love to see a team there.

 

3) Klagenfurt would be next.  I don't know much about them but they are ranked ahead of Chamonix.

 

4)Finally Chamonix I'd put at the bottom of the list as it's more of a ski resort town and the real life team exists in a different form.
 

[samx 1,178]

Review: I enjoyed reading this. It was an easy and we'll put together read. I love how you introduced all the different options and then rated them at the end. I think the theme you went with being the whole most successful team was a nice spin on just straight up the biggest city etc in each country.  I would have liked a little more detail on a couple of the teams otherwise it was really good. Overall great job. 8/10