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Master trainer Serge Aubin gets a champagne shower from Eisbären professional Marcel Noebels
Photo:
Markus Fischer / IMAGO / Passion2Press
Marcel Noebels had just played his fifth ice hockey game in seven days, but still had enough energy to subtly combine his observations about the decisive playoff final in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) into a story.
Julian Nagelsmann, the coach of FC Bayern Munich, was in the ice rink and presented the silver plaques to the players of the EHC Munich team, which was beaten 5-0 that evening and 3-1 in the series.
Noebels, striker at Eisbären Berlin, is a self-confessed fan of Borussia Dortmund.
He said: "We showed black and yellow how to go past Julian Nagelsmann to the cup or the German championship."
Noebels and the Eisbären Berlin managed to defend their title from last year.
In a series that will take its place in history due to the circumstances of the time.
Last Thursday, the Berliners played their fifth and last semi-final against Adler Mannheim, and the first final was on Friday.
»If you want to define overload – that's it.«
The Eisbären lost that 3:4 after a 3:0 lead, but they took the necessary three wins from the matches on Sunday in Munich, on Monday in Berlin and on Wednesday in Munich.
If there had been no decision, they would have met in Berlin on Thursday evening.
"If you want to define overload - that's it," said Munich's sporting director Christian Winkler, whose team had the slightly easier program because they finished their semi-final against Wolfsburg faster.
Gernot Tripcke, the managing director of the DEL, defends the unprecedentedly tight deadline "because it was the least evil of all the options." The league decided to extend the main round by a week until the beginning of April and to accept imbalances elsewhere take.
"We were able to accommodate 20 games - at a time when the halls were allowed to be filled again." All 15 clubs in the DEL would have benefited from this.
As a result, there was a week less time for the playoffs of the top eight clubs.
A shortening of the three rounds (quarter-finals, semi-finals, finals) to a best-of-three procedure was taken off the table because that would have devalued the playoffs, the DEL stuck to the best-of-five mode.
The polar bear owner shows little regard for the team
This became problematic due to Berlin's participation in the final series.
Although the polar bears, like their venue, the Mercedes-Benz Arena at Ostbahnhof, are owned by the US Anschutz Entertainment Group, they took little consideration for their regular team and rented the hall this week for six evenings, twice to basketball , comedy and a K-pop band.
Gernot Tripcke from the DEL: "But we didn't want to force the polar bears to give up home rights or play in their old corrugated iron palace.
That would have led to problems with marketing and season ticket holders.” The arena can hold three times as many spectators – 14,000 – as the Welli cult site.
It was a difficult season for the DEL with many corona interruptions, the Olympic break and with 15 instead of the usual 14 participants - the year before they had suspended relegation, but promoted Bietigheim had accepted.
In the end, the polar bears, a team with a large fan base and a glorious history, became champions.
Father-son project with the polar bears
Frank Hördler, the 37-year-old defender, won his ninth German championship and remained loyal to the organization in the untitled years from 2014 to 2020.
He never lost faith: "I came here in 2003, Peter-John Lee was the first face I saw, and the way he welcomed me showed me that polar bears are something special."
Lee, the Canadian, once a star in the NHL and Dusseldorf, is now 66 and has managed Berlin hockey for 25 years.
"The old days are back," Hördler says jubilantly, "we have a good basis again with the right people behind the gang and in the office." Hördler was voted the "Most Valuable Player" of the playoffs.
"They must be desperate that they took me - we had so many boys who deserved it." He will come back next season - if only because of the father-son project.
Eric Hördler, 17, German U18 international, is a candidate for a professional contract with the polar bears.
Coach Serge Aubin calls Hördler “a legend that still plays” and his team a “Band of Brothers”.
Winning teams always claim internal ties as a trait that sets them apart from the competition, but even the polar bears, despite their two championships and their harmony, are being forced by the reality of business to realign.
The most important member of the family is leaving: Mathias Niederberger, the goalkeeper, who was invincible for more than 100 minutes at the end of the final series, is moving – of all places – to Munich.
"The future is not an issue for today," he said on the ice of the hall where he will be regularly next season.
In the first year in Berlin he found "the key to success", in the second he "passed on my values".
That sounds like a mission accomplished.
For some players from the final the season is not over yet.
The World Cup starts in Finland in a week's time on Friday.
"I'm available," said Mathias Niederberger.
"It's always an honor for me to wear the national jersey, even if there are still three tough weeks ahead," says Noebels.
»I love what I do.
And as long as I'm healthy, I'll go on the ice and I won't complain if I have to play every day."
