Another big name with a rich tradition will honour the 2025 Spengler Cup; IFK Helsinki from the Finnish Liiga will travel to Davos. After 1994, 1995, 2004 and 2022 this will be the fifth participation at the world’s oldest club tournament for the team from the capital.

IFK, founded in 1897, belongs to the oldest still active ice hockey clubs in Europe. And the club has left its mark athletically as well; seven Finnish championships, the last of which came in 2011, provide evidence of its glamorous history. IFK has made the playoffs in each of the past eleven seasons. In the past 2024-25 season, the team finished the regular season a strong fourth, but was defeated by the later runner-up SaiPa in the quarterfinals.

For several years, IFK’s roster has featured numerous promising young talents. As such, the upcoming season’s team will have no fewer than seven players born in 2004 or younger. They all want to make the jump from IFK’s youth department to the NHL, as the current NHL stars Miro Heiskanen and  first-round draft pick Anton Lundell have done before them.

A resonating name provides experience behind the bench; Olli Jokinen, the new head coach, played nearly 1,400 NHL games. He was part of IFK’s championship team in 1997-98, and won three Olympic and six world championship medals with the Finnish national team. For those achievements, he was inducted into the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame in 2019.

Jokinen has been active as a coach since 2015. He begun in the North American youth development, and spent the past three years with the professionals in Finland (Jukurit) and Sweden (Timra IK). With him behind the bench, IFK is looking to move closer to the national top – and in its fourth Spengler Cup appearance maybe even make the finals.