SVT Sport has sent out a questionnaire to all SHL teams before the season (see the answers in the fact box).

It appears that ten of 14 SHL teams have reduced their player budget.

This is also noticeable in the number of recruitments, which has decreased from last year's approximately 130 to just over 80 recruitments this year.

Djurgården has reduced its player budget by about ten percent and they also have three fewer players in the A-team squad compared to last season.

- There are two Swedish Championship golds you are fighting for this year.

Partly it is the sporting Swedish Championship gold that is played on the ice, but there is also a Swedish Championship gold that is awarded how to survive as a company.

It is important to fight both at the same time as well and well as possible, says Djurgården's sports director Joakim Eriksson to SVT Sport.

Big losses

Match day revenue is a large part of the clubs' total revenue, and if the audience is not released to a greater extent, it will mean large million losses.

For the clubs to make a positive result, most people need to be able to take in between 50 and 75 percent over an entire season.

- Still, since the pandemic came upon us in March, we have planned to survive without an audience for a season.

Then it will be super-challenging to combine a Swedish Championship gold on the ice while we survive as an organization.

It will be a huge challenge for us and for all other teams.

But it's a worst case scenario to survive (without an audience) and that's something I think and hope the other 13 teams also reason about.

"Of course it feels tough"

Djurgården plays against Örebro away in the series premiere on Saturday.

The home premiere takes place just over a week later.

In normal cases, the premiere usually means crowded stands - but now it is a completely different feeling, says Joakom Eriksson.

- I would say that you enter the season with mixed feelings.

Of course, it feels tough and hard to handle the financial challenges and also emotionally tough not to be allowed to play in front of the fantastic setting that it is to play in front of a packed arena.

Few are privileged to play in front of 7,000 spectators who cheer for one, says Joakim Eriksson.