DEC Salzburg Eagles

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DEC Salzburg Eagles
Greatest successes
Club information
history EC The Ravens Salzburg (2001-2010)
DEC Salzburg Eagles (since 2010)
Location Salzburg , Austria
Club colors gold, black, white
league Elite Women's Hockey League Women's ice hockey
Bundesliga
Venue Ice arena Salzburg
capacity 3,500 seats
EWHL 2018/19 5th place

The DEC Salzburg Eagles is the first Austrian women's ice hockey club from the city of Salzburg . The club has been playing in the highest Austrian women's league since 2002/03 and has so far won the Austrian state championship twice .

history

Founding history

In the spring of 2000, some sports-loving girls from Salzburg got together to start an ice hockey team. The hobby and leisure team, consisting mostly of schoolgirls and trained by Hannes Kreuzer, completed its first dry training in summer and went on the ice for the first time in winter of the same year. After the team had to realize with disillusion their actual weakness, the players decided to practice ice hockey professionally and seriously in the future.

On the initiative of the patron Dr. Thomas Seywald , founder and owner of the " Galerie Seiwald " in Salzburg's Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse, which is known far beyond the Salzburg borders , the team was accepted as a separate women's section in the EC The Red Bulls Salzburg association . As a further measure, the club decided to participate in the state championship, in which the Salzburg women, however, finished last in the table in their first season 2000/2001 with only one point. After the unsuccessful opening season, training was intensified in summer 2001 and a training camp was held for the first time in autumn. Even before the start of the championship, differences with the club's management led to the separation from the Red Bulls and the establishment of the independent women's ice hockey club " EC The Ravens Salzburg ".

The first chairman of the new association was Thomas Seywald, secretary Wilbert Herzog and treasurer Sonja Winkler. The club's coat of arms, a raven with a puck in its beak, was designed and made available by the well-known Austrian draftsman and graphic artist Paul Flora , Seywald's father-in-law. The raven itself is also Flora's personal heraldic animal, which inevitably resulted in the club's name of the "Ravens".

Promotion to the Bundesliga and three-time runner-up title

season league placement
2002/03 DEBL 2nd place
play-off: runner-up
2003/04 DEBL Basic round: 2nd place
play-off: runner-up
2004/05 DEBL Basic round: 1st place
play-off: runner-up

In the 2001/02 state championship, coach Hannes Kreuzer surprisingly led the Salzburg women as the best Austrian team to second place behind the team from Sterzing, Italy, and thus achieved promotion to the women's ice hockey Bundesliga (DEBL) for the first time with the Ravens . In 2002/03 the Ravens played in the Austrian Bundesliga for the first time and surprisingly reached second place in the table behind the EHV Sabers from Vienna in the regular season . After the rise against the Dragons from Klagenfurt, the Salzburg women were clearly defeated by their Viennese rivals 3: 9 and 2: 8 in two finals, but celebrated winning the Austrian runner-up title for the first time in their short club history. Some personnel changes followed at the end of the season. Thomas Seywald handed over the office of chairman to Wilbert Herzog, but remained with the club as a sponsor . The successful coach Kreuzer, who withdrew into private life, was followed by Vera Pancakova as player coach.

The 2003/04 game year showed the Salzburg women after the regular season of the Bundesliga with four points ahead of the Sabers for the first time in first place in the table. After successes over the Klagenfurt Dragons in the play-off games, the Ravens were defeated in the final by the Sabers in three games (2-4, 5-4 and 3-6) and were again Austrian vice state champions.

The 2004/05 season began again with changes in the club's board. Former chairman Thomas Seywald returned as sporting director. The previous coach Vera Pancakova left the club because both the sports management and the board agreed that she could not help the players in their sporting development. After the basic round, the Ravens took first place in the league. In the play-off games, Salzburg defeated the EHC Vienna Flyers 8: 1 and 10: 4 and advanced confidently to the final. There they were again defeated by their "arch rivals" EHV Sabers with 2: 4 in both matches, but for the third time in a row they took the Salzach runner-up . In the newly founded Elite Women's Hockey League with participants from Italy , Hungary , Slovenia and Austria, the Ravens played behind the Sabers from Vienna (champions), Terme Maribor, Agordo Hockey and the Eagles Bozen, ten points behind the champions to the fifth place. In the same season, a successful syndicate was established between the Ravens B-Team and the Kundl Crocodiles . By winning the B-League, the SPG Kundl / Salzburg qualified for the Bundesliga, which means that Salzburg was represented with two teams in the top division in the following year.

First national championship title for a Salzburg ice hockey team

At the beginning of the 2005/06 season , the Austrian A-license trainer Heinz Schiller took over as coach for the Salzburg women. In the same year Thomas Seywald founded the International Hockey Academy in Salzburg together with the Canadian trainer Kim Perepeluk . The aim of the academy was the systematic and regular exchange of young players and students from Salzburg and the home countries of ice hockey, the USA and above all Canada .

There was a fundamental reform in the Bundesliga this season. The four best clubs played in the EWHL and only intervened in the fight for the Austrian championship title in the play-off games. The basic round in the Bundesliga was played with six teams, including for the first time the Kundl / Salzburg syndicate, which consisted of players from the Kundl Crocodiles and the Salzburg Ravens. The four best-placed clubs in the regular season qualified for the play-off games, with each Bundesliga team playing against a team from the EWHL.

season league placement
2005/06 DEBL Basic round: 1st place
play-off: champions
2006/07 DEBL Play-off: runner-up
2007/08 DEBL Play-off: runner-up
2008/09 DEBL Play-off: champions
2009/10 DEBL Play-off: runner-up

The Ravens met SPG Kundl / Salzburg in the quarter-finals, which took third place in the basic round, and clearly defeated their own B-team with 9: 0 and 12: 0. With two victories against EHV Sabers in the semifinals (8: 2, 4: 2) they reached the play-off final for the fourth time in a row. The opponent this time was the DEC Dragons Klagenfurt, who could not match the Salzburg women in the first final game on February 25, 2006 in the Salzburg ice rink and was outclassed with 2:15. The second leg on March 4th ended 3-0 for the Salzburg team, which five years after the club was founded was celebrated as the “ Austrian State Champion Ladies Ice Hockey 2006” (the official name). This was all the more remarkable because it was the first ever national championship title for a Salzburg team in Austrian ice hockey, and after the EC The Red Bulls, which had triggered a true ice hockey boom in Salzburg in previous years, narrowly failed in the men's championship , the Salzburg public finally took notice of the success of the women's team.

In the Elite Women's Hockey League , which was expanded to include clubs from Croatia and Slovakia , the Ravens achieved third place in the "South-West Division" and after the play-off games against the clubs in the North-West Division, which were held for the first time in this competition , the fifth final rank.

For the 2006/07 season, the EC The Ravens Salzburg strengthened itself with three guest players from Canada and the USA, all of whom were signed via the International Hockey Academy . The Salzburg women also have great expectations for the return of Kerstin Oberhuber, who has now played for the Ravens again after her stay abroad. As a goal, coach Schiller and the club management set the title defense in the Austrian championship and a place in the top three of the EWHL.

In the following two seasons, the Ravens each won the runner-up title before they could become national champions again in 2009.

Renaming to DEC Salzburg Eagles

After the founder of the association was replaced at the head of the association at a general assembly in 2010, the association created a new logo, which differs significantly from the previous main logo. Instead of a raven with a puck in its beak, an eagle with an ice hockey stick is now used as an illustration. The club name was changed to DEC Salzburg Eagles according to the logo change.

titles and achievements

Web links