Adelbert St. John

Adelbert St. John
Date of birth	October 6, 1931
place of birth	Edmonton , Alberta , Canada
date of death	December 18, 2009
Place of death	Klagenfurt , Austria
Nickname	Del
size	169 cm
Weight	70 kg
position	striker
Shot hand	Left
Career stations
1961–1962	Viennese EV
1963-1971	EC KAC
1972-1975	HC Salzburg
1975-1988	Innsbruck EV
1978-1979	EC VSV

Adelbert "Del" Saint John (born October 6, 1931 in Edmonton , Alberta ; † December 18, 2009 in Klagenfurt ) was an Austro - Canadian ice hockey player who spent a large part of his career at the Austrian first division club EC KAC , with whom he between 1964 and in 1971 won the championship title every year in a row as a player and player-coach .

Career

After Adelbert St. John had started his career in North America, he came to Austria for the first time after a few years in Bolzano in the early 1960s and was able to win an Austrian championship for the first time with the Viennese EV and his strike partner Jerry Hudson . A little later he switched to EC KAC in Klagenfurt. There he experienced a series that has not been surpassed to this day between 1964 and 1971, winning eight further titles as a player and player-coach in the Carinthian capital. He achieved some remarkable results of the season: In the 1964/65 season he scored a total of 40 goals, a year later he scored another 20 goals in just twelve games.

In the course of his career he moved to Innsbruck, Villach and Salzburg, among others, where he played key roles in the teams and was able to convince both as a coach and as a player. St. John compensated for his relatively small size with a technically very strong and elegant style of play, with which he was way ahead of many opposing players in the Austrian league at the time. In total, he scored 203 goals and 149 assists in 284 games in Austria, spending 217 minutes in the penalty box.

Adelbert St. John married Erika Puschnig in Klagenfurt, the sister of his striker colleague Josef Puschnig , with whom he lived until his death. After his active career as an ice hockey player, he devoted himself primarily to golf and worked as a ranger at the Seltenheim Golf Club near Klagenfurt, among other things.

St. John was the first foreign ice hockey player to be naturalized in Austria. From 1962 he had the Austrian passport. As a result, he also played 59 times for the Austrian national ice hockey team and scored 52 goals and 33 assists.

Achievements and Awards

• 1962 Austrian champion with the Vienna EV
• From 1964 to 1971 eight times Austrian champion with the EC KAC

literature

• Margreiter, Haiszan, Kilias: The Great Austrian Ice Hockey Book , Verlag Buch Spezial Dornbirn, ISBN 3-900496-04-4
• OMR. Dr. Hellmuth Reichel: KAC - ice hockey conquers a city! , Publisher: Klagenfurter Athletiksport Club, Klagenfurt, 1995
• Club brochure: 75 Years of KAC, 1909–1984 , publisher: Klagenfurter Athletiksport Club, Klagenfurt, 1984
• Anniversary book: Red as blood, white as snow - 100 years of KAC , publisher: Klagenfurter Athletiksport Club, Klagenfurt, 2009 , author: Dr. Gert Seeber, Walter Grill, Heinz Traschitzger

Web links

• Del St. John at internationalhockeylegends.blogspot.de
• Adelbert St. John at eliteprospects.com (English)