TV-pucken

TV-pucken
Småland winning the 2008 event
Status	active
Genre	sporting event
Date(s)	varying
Frequency	annual
Country	Sweden
Inaugurated	1959 (1959)

TV-pucken (English: the TV puck) is a Swedish national ice hockey tournament for district teams of boys under 15 years of age. It was created by hockey legend Sven "Tumba" Johansson.

The tournament is named "TV-pucken" because when it was first played in 1959, every game was broadcast on television, but nowadays only the playoff games are shown. It is generally considered a great merit for a Swedish ice hockey player to have played in TV-pucken.

The allowed maximum age of the players was originally 16 years, but reduced to 15 in 1979. During a meeting on Bosön in December 2002 it was decided to increase the age from 15 to 16 from the 2003 tournament, to prevent the "early exclusion" caused by young players giving up ice hockey.

The tournament has also given birth to the expressions of TV-pucken crowd (Swedish: TV-puckshög) and TV-pucken joy (Swedish: TV-pucksglädje) as the entire team throws themself onto the playing surface celebrating goals and victories.

Starting in the year 2000 Stockholm became allowed to participate with two teams., following an idea of the Stockholm Ice Hockey Association on its own after claiming to have so many skilled young players. and this concept has also been used later. In 2012 Småland also participated with two teams ("red" and "yellow") and so also in 2013. For the 2016 tournament the Swedish Ice Hockey Association decided to set up a new team, consisting of 22 players who'd been rejected from respective district association teams.

The 1997 edition aired over TV 3 as "TV-cupen".

Several "spinoff"-variations were later developed, like cross-country skiing's TV-skidan starting in 1965, but never gaining the same popularity as TV-pucken. Even other team sports have similar tournaments, often not airing over TV, where Swedish youth district teams challenge each other.

There are 24 district teams divided in four groups participating in TV-pucken. Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, traditionally participates with two teams, which are named Vit (white) and Röd (red). In 2009, however, only one Stockholm team participated in the tournament.