2025 Continental Cup Final Review

CARDIFF, WALES – It is official, the Cardiff Devils are the 2025 IIHF Continental Cup Champions, completing the journey on home ice, where their march for success in this competition began, back in 2022, hosting for the first time.

Since then, there have been back to back Finals in Cardiff, with 2 bronze trophies and trips to France (Angers, Grenoble) and Slovenia (Žilina), playing against competition from those countries, as well as from Poland, Kazakhstan, Italy, Latvia, Slovakia and Denmark.

It has been quite a story.

Ambition, belief, passion, heartbreak, frustration and even complacency.

Wherever the team went, their loyal fans travelled, flying the banner for Great Britain, Cardiff and Wales. This has commanded enormous and immense respect from each opponent, their fans and the IIHF itself. After all, back to back Finals being hosted in the Welsh capital, they must feel right at home.

No matter who they faced, they made sure they were heard above the rest, home or away and even up against well organised and renowned opposition, friends have been made along the way, with so many memories etched into the fabric of this fantastically successful club.

Even the Finals director said it himself and later Sam Duggan via an interview with the BBC, Cardiff IS a hockey town. It was first stated in an article on the eve of the last final, written here for Chasing The Puck; https://chasingthepuck0.wordpress.com/2024/01/10/cardiff-wales-hockey-town/

This success only adds to the reputation the club has built, forging connections, relationships and constructing competitive teams to raise the profile of not only the hockey and calibre of the club itself, but for the EIHL and the national team as well.

With Pete Russell at the helm of both, the future looks so much the brighter, especially as his current stars have performed tremendously.

From Brett Perlini to Mark Richardson and Sam Duggan to Bayley Harewood, the competitive calendar won’t end at the conclusion of this domestic season, there is still a lot of hockey to play for internationally. Adding this… trophy, to the cabinet for the Team GB stars and upstarts, is yet another step into that direction.

For the final itself, it couldn’t have been poised any better. Just a win, in any fashion would do. They romped to a dominant victory over Polands GKS Katowice a few days before, leaving the only competition left in Grenoble BDL, who went to penalties the night before.

With the fervent home crowd and rapturous, booming Block 13 behind them leading the charge, chorus and energy off the ice, they were ready for battle, for hockeys glitziest platter.

Some might ridicule it, but silverware is silverware and you have to be in it to win it, of which it is never a given and this club knows that all too well.

You can be an underdog and go on a great run, capitalising on weak line ups from farm teams against the ‘big boys’ of Europe, in this competition, it is more to the case that it is best on best.

On top of this was the nod to acknowledgement from the tournament directorate, with goalie Mac Carruth as best shot stopper and Josh MacDonald as best forward.

Last season those honours went to the Kazakh players instead, with former Devil, Bode Wilde as the top blue liner.

Cole Sanford earned best forward in 2023.

This has been a steady build, with 3 coaches taking this club into Europe in recent years, from Skalde in the CHL, to the previous and current coaches in this competition, Cardiff and its Devils has formed a proud identity of being the UK’s principal European Hockey hub.

A destination where North American imports want to play at, a club which attracts fans from far and wide, from Scotland and across England, to France and a beyond. Not many other EIHL clubs can boast that.

This will make the next few weeks all the more important. From the celebrations on the ice to these heady days after (another) famous night down the bay, this team now has the taste for success and being a point behind their fierce rivals, Giants, they will be determined to get back on top.

Also, with a club from a small town in Nottingham joining the Mighty Panthers propping up the chase behind them, the league is wide open and Europe surely awaits which team from Great Britains top league will venture out next.

I can make a sure fire bet, be it IIHF or CHL competition, they will want the Devils to join in the madness of these European campaigns, so they can soak in the pride, exuberant and energetic atmosphere and scenes their fans create, with sublime hockey on display.

The first one is claimed. League and the rest are the next targets.

The Devils have awoken, arisen from the depths of their inferno and upon the wings of an army, unleashed once more.

The battle begins.