Finland to host the 2020 IWAS Powerchair Hockey European Championship

Italy's Claudio Salvo trying to put the ball past the Finnish goaltender Atso Ahonen in the 2012 European Champiosnhip.

Finland will host the 2020 IWAS Powerchair Hockey European Championship from June 1st to 8th at the Pajulahti Olympic & Paralympic Training Center, Lahti. The match days will be June 3rd–7th.

The top eight European Powerchair Hockey nations will be represented at the event: Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Finland.

This will be the third time that the major Powerchair Hockey event is held in Finland. The first World Championship was organised in Helsinki on 2004 where Finland finished fifth. The 2012 European Championship was also held in Pajulahti. Then the hosts claimed bronze medals.

Overall Finland has won three bronze medals in Powerchair Hockey: European Championship bronze in 2012 and World Championship bronze in 2010 and 2014. Finland had to settle for seventh place in the 2016 European Championship and they didn’t qualify for the 2018 World Championship.

– Even though Finland hasn’t been among the top teams in recent years, the team has made steady progress and built their way back to the top. There are several quite even teams in Powerchair Hockey at the moment and I’m confident Finland will be one of the contestants for the medals in their home soil, says Timo Pelkonen, the Secretary General of the Pajulahti European Championship.

Powerchair Hockey is a variation of floorball but the top nations are quite different compared to floorball. Italy is the reigning World Champion, the Netherlands is defending their European Championship gold medals and Denmark is the number one team in the World ranking at the moment. In Sweden the Powerchair Hockey is virtually not existing at the moment.