The November break is about to begin in Europe. Normally this first co-ordinated break in the regular season schedules allows for things like national team tournaments, junior national team tournaments, the Champions Hockey League and just some rest for the bulk of the players.
This year, the Champions Hockey League has been cancelled, some leagues never even started, some are paused, and some have had more games postponed lately. The Deutschland Cup, which is usually full of second-tier national teams, will be formed from two German teams and Latvia. The Karjala Cup, set for Helsinki, has one junior team (Russia), one half junior team (Czechia) and two men’s teams with no one from the KHL (Sweden and Finland).