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Table Hockey Champions 2007
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 | Lukas Turon (* 1990)
 Czech Champion 2007
27.5.2007 - Czech Championship 2007
Lukas Turon has became Czech champion for the third time in a row. Czech championship 2007 was held in his hometown Trinec. There are 48 participants at every Czech championship - players have to qualify through the Czech Cup series. Lukas Turon was the biggest favorite of the championship since he won six out of ten Czech cup tournaments of the season and never finished without a medal place (naturally won the whole Czech Cup). 2nd place was won by Michal Hvizd, third was Jan Suchy at both championship and Czech Cup series.
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 | Edgars Caics (* 1989)
 Latvian Champion 2007
12.5.2007 - Latvian Championship 2007
First of all we had 107 players in last Latvian championships. The system
was to divide all the players in 6 groups and 4 best of each group goes to
the final group 5-8 to second league and so on. The 16 best players from the
final groups get into the play-off and than play off is been played like
everywhere till the final. In Latvia we have a lot of young and talanted
players who have been playing just for a year or 2 and already gets into
the final groups and even play-off. very big example is Karlis Balodis, he
has been playing just for 2 years, I suppose, but he has already get the 26th
place in Helsinki, and beat me there in the final group. So Latvia has
more young players than adults. For me it is always a great pleasure to play
in Latvia, because I know that everybody wants to beat me very much, and
there are a lot of interesting and tough games for me. It`s funny that a small
kid whose head can`t be easily seen above the table knows my name a tells to
other that he has just played against Caics. It`s realy a very big pleasure
to hear it for me!
About the last Latvian championships, I was in the group A playing very
peacefully, and i managed to get all 16 victories with the goal difference
113-21. After that I had to play the final group. I finished as the 1st
there with some difficulities I had 39 points and Atis Silis got 38. I had
19-1-3 with goal difference 129-50. it means that no easy games for me
because Latvians can score a lot. Then came the play-off in 1/8 I had to
play against very promising new player Janis Kalnevics, and I won this
series with 4-1 (2:3ot, 6:3, 8:1, 3:2, 4:3) also thought I lost the first
game as well and I had some difficulities in the last 2 games. In 1/4 I
played against Salvis Skarainis, very experienced player, who is very smart
when playing play-offs. And I won
4-1 (3:1, 4:3ot, 1:3, 2:0, 4:0) althought Salvis had a realy great defence,
but i managed to show a good defence by myself so I won.
Then came the most exiting and toughest play-off 1/2 final against Arturs
Vercins, he was showing an amazing game that night and the crowd was realy
in his side, because everyone is fed up with Caics winning all the time :)
4-3 (4:5ot, 2:4, 6:3, 6:1, 3:4, 4:1, 6:5) and in the last game Arturs was
leading 4-0 and 5-2, but I suppose he hasn`t that self confidence and
experience to win such an important games yet, so I was lucky to win him.
And in the final I had to play with Atis Silis like always :)
It has been always very different to play against him, because we have been
training together for more than 4 years already so we know what the other is
going to do and the scores just prove it 4-2 (6:2, 3:4, 2:1, 2:1ot, 1:2,
3:0).
What else I would like to say is that it`s becoming tougher and tougher to
win in Latvia with every single tournament because we have a lot of
promising and talanted players here in Latvia, and you will be able to see
that in Riga cup in 8 of december!! Everybody is welcome.
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 | Tore Lie (* 1973)
 Norwegian Champion 2007
24.3.2007 - Norwegian Championship 2007
Each year since 1991 the Norwegian Championship has been played. Ever since Preben Berg became the first champion in 1991, playing for approximately 10000 spectators in the middle of Norway's biggest ice hockey arena, the championhip - NM - has been the by far most prestigous throphy in Norwegian Tablehockey. Preben became the first champion beating Torbjorn Lerfald 1-0 in the best-of-one final (!) - playing only 7 games (!!!) to get to the final. Since 1992, the tournament has been played using regular tablehockey rules, and over the years 10 different players have won the throphy.
To me the 2007 championship was important as ever, both since I'd failed to win the throphy since 2002, and also because it marked the 15th year anniversary of my first Championship title in 1992 (I'm getting old...). After struggling hard to get through the first play-off round, beating the talented Peder "The Rock" Mortvedt in the seventh game, I had a rather easy quarter final against the star of Bergen, SvenO - and to everybodys suprise I met Jim Nordli in the semifinale. Jim, playing the tournament of his life had beaten Norwegian Champions (Ronne & Remmem) 2005 & 2006 in his Final-16 & Quarterfinals, and was exhausted. He therefore was a gentleman and allowed me another final. I don't remember much of the final, but what I do remember is the sweet feeling of success - racing the Championship Throphy and "Bringing the Gold Home".
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 | Kristijan Curkovic (* 1976)
 Croatian Champion 2007
Podsused Challenger 2006/2007
Croatian TableHockey Championship „BEST IN CROATIA“ began in 2006 (first season 2006/2007), and had been organized by Table hockey club KIT Zagreb. The Season started in October 2006 (Glavica Open – Rjavec from Slovenia won) and finished in July 2007 (Summer Cup – Jari Sahlgren from Finland won). All tournaments organized in Croatia and accepted by ITHF organisation have been counted into the overall Best in Croatia ranking. The rules were clear, the best three results for players from all BIC tournaments have been counted into the overall ranking. We played 8 very interesting tournaments in the season. I remember some great challengers and some really exciting matches between Marko, Vjeko and myself and the fact that the winner of Croatian national championship was not known until we played the last scheduled tournament in the season, confirm that our Championship was exciting. Fortunately for me, I managed to win the first Croatian season, and I am also on the good way to defend my prestigious title this season. I must admit that if I have not played BIC season I would have probably never won Bembel in Germany or Menges in Slovenia. So I believe that our balcony matches have grown into quite nice tournaments. Nowadays about 30 players form 5 different countries have attended at least one Croatian championship tournaments, and we are growing.............. slowly!
This year in Croatian Championship we are having two scheduled tournaments.
One we have already played – Papp from Hungary won in very dramatical semifinal against Bjarne Axelsen from Denmark and final against Balint Nagy from Hungary, great games.
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 | Bjarne Axelsen (* 1974)
 Danish Champion 2007
29.9.2007 - Danish Championship 2007
The Danish Championship is being played over 6 tournaments where the winner of every tournament get 40 points for winning it to the Danish Championship standings.
No. 2 gets 35 points and after this 32, 30, 28, 27, 26 etc.
The player with the highest amount of points after the 6 tournaments is The Danish Champion.
The tournaments are being played throughout Denmark.
Bjarne Axelsen from Fremad Eagles has won the Danish Championship 4 years in a row (2004 - 2007)
Though there has been several silvermedalist.
In 2004 Lasse Penning won silver, in 2005 Peter Orum, in 2006 Mathias Langbak and in 2007 Anette Engel became the first lady to win a medal in the open series (perhaps throughout the whole world)
The tournament system is basic groups Round Robin from which the 16 best promote to play off.
In play off every round is best-of-7.
Besides Danish Championship there is Danish GP which consists of 12 tournaments throughout the year.
The total winner of Danish GP is also found according to a point system with 100 points to the winner of every tournament and ater this 95, 90, 90, 80, 75, 70, 65 etc.
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 | Igor Saveljev (* 1968)
 Estonia Champion 2007
Championships of Estonia 2006/2007
During the last seasons in the championship of Estonia one player seemed better than the others that is Jevgenij Mestserjakov who won the estonian championship in 2005 and 2006.
From 16 stages (during one season was 8) he won 12.
Three stages visitors from Latvia have won, and Igor Saveljev the last one.
This victory gave Igor the hope to struggle for gold in the season 2006/2007.
In January, 2006 Igor became no. 1 at the ranking in Estonia and had experience on tournaments in Riga, Moscow and Helsinki.
In winter 2006 some estonians have by own strength constructed a room where they trained a lot.
Saveljev, Hamdamov, Trofimov's Valery and Vlad, Lomakin.
“Zhenja” Meshcherjakov and other representatives of club "Tallinn BHC" did not train so much at this time and began therefore to lose the positions.
On trainings we discussed tactics, watched video with games of champions, invited friends from Latvia (Caics, Silis, Sternats, Smagars) and Finland (Laakso) which taught us to tactics.
In the season 2006/2007 Igor was confident, that he could win the title.
In November and December the most dangerous opponent was Vlad Trofimov but then he was ill and has missed two important stages in the winter.
The main opening-surprise of a season became Juri Artamonov.
The former professional football player of FC Levadia learned to know STIGA in summer and practised together with Igor and SK Raua players and began to show interesting and very fast game.
In autumn he was already constant among the prize-winners, and in March he won his first stage.
At the end of a season he was Igors main competitor.
The main thing was more experience of the international tournaments for Igor. In the season 2006/2007 Igor won 4 stages out of 8.
On 1 stage he won Jevgeni Meshcherjakov, Vladislav Trofimov, Juri Artamonov and Arturs Vercins from Latvia.
Very interesting the ending of a season has turned out.
At 8th and last stage Igor meets Artamonov in the final.
Igor Saveljev explains:
The title of the champion was already in my pocket but I wanted to win last series and it is beautiful to finish a season. Artamonov conducted 3-1 in a series and we played an overtime in 5th game almost 7 minutes.
I have won the overtime and then the next 2 matches.
(Saveljev - Artamonov 3-2, 1-2 ot, 1-3, 2-3 ot, 3-2 ot, 3-2, 7-0).
Totally the season was successful.
The World Championship in Moscow where we have played adequately, especially in a team has shown it also.
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 | Zoltan Cserhati (* 1977)
 Hungarian Champion 2007
20.5.2007 - Hungarian Championship 2007
The 9th Hungarian Championship took place on 20th May,
2007 in the main hall of Markusovszky Youth Hostel of
Semmelweis University (now this is the headquarter of
Orczy-Bazis Klub, and this is the venue for the
Hungarian Sportmaster Tournament, too.)
First Hungarian champion was Zoltan Illes (1999), then
Tamas Kiss won two times (2000,2001), 2002 was the
year for Magor Papp, and the last four championships
was won by Gergely Regula (2003-2006, four times in a
row.)
This year Gergely Regula spent his scholarship days in Finland, so the championship had to be played
without the defending champion.
Playing system: 26 players attended, everyone played each other in one group. 16 players went to
the play-off, matches for best of five in the best 16
and 8. Matches for best of seven in the semi-finals
and in the final.
After the basic group impressively playing junior,
Mate Szabo was the 1st, Peter Borsanyi took 2nd place,
after that Cserhati, Nagy, Papp, Szilasi, Parkanszki,
Letay was the ranking.
In the best sixteen Laszlo Bobak (16th place in basic
group!) defeated his teammate, the group-winner Mate
Szabo in three games, Balint Nagy had too struggle
against Viktor Magyari (3:2). In the quarter-finals
the most exciting battle came between Magor and Balint, Magor won in five games against Balint,
but he got too tired against Daniel in the semi.
Zoltan played against Barnabas in the semi-final, and
collected a 4:2 win (after 0:2).
The final was a great chance for both of players. Zoltan Cserhati didn't
win any "important" tournament up to that time,
Daniel Letay, the "father of Hungarian table hockey" won his
last Hungarian League tournament in 2002. After the
first three games, the standing was an "easy" 3:0 for
Zoltan, but after that Daniel threw his chair away,
started to fight hard, and came back for 3:3. Seventh
match was to decide. One minute before the end it was
0:1 for Daniel, but Zoltan managed to equalize and score
the final goal (2:1).
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 | Imrich Blasko (* 1990)
 Slovak Champion 2007
13.5.2007 - Slovak Championship 2007
During previous years it was Martin Kralik who led the whole Slovak table hockey community and became Slovak champion in years 2004 and 2005. But then he suddenly retired. Battle of a new Slovak table hockey number one was won by Karol Hudec in the year 2006. And therefore he arrived to Skalica in May 2007 to defend his tittle. Everybody expected that his biggest opponent will be Imrich Blasko - his pupil and sparring partner. Maybe you already know Imrich - young boy watching as much games as possible trying to find some new tricks which is he able to learn during a next few days.
Pupil became master and Imrich won Slovak tittle quite easily - he lost only one match in the play-off. Surprisingly his opponent in the final wasn't Karol Hudec, but Czech legionary Miro Ramsak. Karol finished on the sixth place behind Tomas Mizenko and two promising juniors Tomas Zamutovsky and Tibor Valachovic.
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 | Jaka Skrlep (* 1991)
 Slovenian Champion 2007
Slovenian Cup 2006/2007
The winner of the championship in year 2006/2007 was Jaka Skrlep while Bernard Rjavec came 2nd and Nejc Skrlep 3rd. The Slovenian championship was played for the 2nd time - the 1st time Sergej Vasiljev won the title in 2005/2006. The championship is being played throughout the whole season with 12 tournaments where the 8 best are being counted. The philosophy behind this is that it shall be a hard job to win the title and not only based on one lucky day. The tournaments are being played in different kinds of Slovenia. They are first of all playing a basic group and after this the 8 best players go to Play Off where they meet no. 1 vs. 8, no. 4 vs. 5 etc. The overall winner of the title is the player with the largest amount of points counting his or her 8 best tournaments together.
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Finnish Champion 2007
Russian Champion 2007
Swedish Champion 2007
Austrian Champion 2007
German Champion 2007
Swiss Champion 2007
