100 years of EVF: The Spengler Cup is coming to Füssen
Created: 07/12/2022 15:49
By: Selma Höfer
The EV Füssens team celebrates its first German championship title in 1949.
© Archive/Hegenbarth
EV Füssen is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a colorful program next weekend.
A review.
Füssen –
Founded on December 11, 1922, EV Füssen blossomed into the leading ice hockey club in Germany in the post-war period.
Although the financial difficulties followed the high flight, the club always got back on its feet.
At the weekend, the EVF celebrates its 100th birthday with an extraordinary and masterful program (see info box).
This will include an exhibition that Rainer Zenzs put together largely on his own initiative.
Testimonials from the teams, their coaches and the club family.
Memorabilia in words, pictures and to touch, because the exhibits also include some medals and trophies.
Anyone who asks Zenzs what he thinks should be highlighted in the successes of the EVF should take a little time for the conversation.
The former head of press interviews for the ice hockey club has experienced a lot, not least in this position.
As a radio presenter, he reported live on the Kobelhang games for 25 years.
So he can tell a lot.
Above all, however, Zenzs would emphasize that it was the EVF that made the name of his hometown known worldwide.
EV Füssen won the Spengler Cup twice.
The trophy will be a special exhibit at the grand anniversary celebration gala on December 9th.
© Felix Warmann
The long-time ESV fan can name the great successes as if shot out of a pistol: In 24 years, the EVF won the German championship title 16 times.
The team was also runners-up five times.
When FC Füssen celebrated their anniversary in 2019, he thought: "When the EVF turns 100, we'll try to make it really big." Zenzs began his private collection decades ago, and in recent years he's put even more effort into it .
how it all started
The club's history began in 1922, when 18 people from Füssen, who were enthusiastic about ice hockey, came together to found a club.
The initiator was Hans Rüther, who was also the first chairman of the "Füssen Ice Sports Club" until 1930.
The development work of the association was exemplary for the sport.
In the years 1927 to 1930, 1933 to 1936, 1938 to 1944 and 1948 the Füssen team qualified for the final round of the German championship.
In 1929, the EVF became Bavarian Ice Hockey Champion for the first time.
In 1935 the club won the German vice championship for the first time.
After the end of the Second World War, the EVF finally catapulted itself to the top of German ice hockey.
In short, the Füssen ice hockey club was the most successful in post-war German history.
The championship titles were brought in in the 25 years, more precisely from 1949 to 1973.
Seven of them in an unbroken sequence (a record that still stands today).
The master makers
also read
Füssen's St. Nicholas market can still take place
Parking lot at the Füssener Sportpark: Wengert goes to court
It should also be emphasized that the club only needed 74 players and five coaches for the 16 titles won.
The master coaches were Bruno Leinweber, Frank Trottier, Markus Egen, Vladimír Bouzek and Siegfried Schubert.
They are respectfully called "the master makers," explains Zenzs.
The game was played from the late 1940s to the late 1980s in the Kobel Stadium, which initially had a capacity of around 16,000 spectators.
When the stadium was covered in the early 1960s, the ice rink only held 7,000 spectators.
The then 1st President of EV Füssen, Raphael von Thurn und Taxis, was in charge of the construction project.
The Kobel Stadium was the first club-owned ice rink in Germany and a sensation shortly after the end of the war.
In 1988 it was demolished and the arena was built, which was completed in 1990.
Today, the ice rink is increasingly being criticized: expensive repairs are constantly needed and the rising energy costs are currently endangering the operation of the ice rinks (the Kreisbote reported several times).
In 1973, Füssen became the hometown of the Federal Training Center for Ice Hockey and Curling (BLZ) and thus became a training ground for ice sports.
That is thanks to Otto Wanner, says Zenzs.
Wanner, Mayor of Füssen and President of the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) at the time, tried very hard to do so.
In 2006, the BLZ also became a federal base for curling.
The association is insolvent
The EV Füssen seemed invincible.
But in the course of the 1970s, the heyday of the club came to an end.
Already at the beginning of the 1980s, the EVF found itself in the table cellar.
After bankruptcy in 1983, the EVF was founded as the successor under the name "Ice Skating Club Füssen".
According to Siegfried Schubert, former team captain, board member and coach of the first team of the EVF (1970 to 1983), the club's debts amounted to around 400,000 euros.
Schubert is the author of the chronicle "EV Füssen, 16-time German Ice Hockey Champion".
He is of the opinion that bankruptcy "could possibly have been averted simply by selling the Nebelvilla in Füssen, on Kemptenerstrasse, which was acquired in 1966".
By the late 1980s, the EVF was a good second division team.
What followed was a kind of roller coaster ride.
From the 2000/01 season to the 2014/15 season, the team played consistently in the Oberliga.
On July 27, 2015, EV Füssen filed for its second insolvency.
There was a lack of the necessary income, the necessary donations from industry and sponsoring, as well as enough spectators at the games.
But the club did not give up and started again - under the name "Eissportverein Füssen" - another new start in the Bavarian district league.
In the current season, the black and yellow are playing in the Oberliga Süd, the third highest division in German ice hockey.
Big program
At a big gala on December 9th in the Festspielhaus, the association lets its guests travel through the years (the Kreisbote reported).
Before the big show starts, Zenz's exhibition can be admired in the foyer.
While the guests at the birthday party marvel at the testimonies, they can exchange ideas and get into conversation - also with ice hockey legends and players of the current team.
Thomas Zellhuber, 2nd EVF board member, invited 27 former champions and trainers to the gala.
"Everyone who is still alive," says Zenzs.
The exhibition will be richly stocked with rarities.
The "Spengler Cup" will be one of the very special exhibits.
“A delegation from the museum in Davos accompanies the trophy,” says Zenzs.
The noble family also lent him the Thurn and Taxis Cup.
“Only the championship trophies are missing.
No one knows where they went.”
Two days later, on the club's actual birthday, the black and yellow play a traditional derby against SC Riessersee, the club's first opponents in its early years.
Then, and probably until the end of March, the EVF memorabilia collected by Zenzs can be admired in a converted ski hut in front of the arena on the Kobelhang.
