EHC Visp

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
EHC Visp
EHC Visp
Greatest successes
Club information
history Founding year: 1939
Location Visp
Club colors black, red, white
league Swiss League
Venue Lonza Arena
capacity 5'120 places
executive Director Sébastien Pico
Head coach Matti Alatalo
captain Luca Camperchioli
Season 2019/20 4th place, playoff semifinals

The EHC Visp is a Swiss ice hockey club from Visp , whose professional team plays in the Swiss League under the leadership of EHC Visp Sport AG . The greatest success of the club is winning the championship title in the NLA in 1962. In addition, they won the championship title in 1960, 2011 and 2014 in the second-highest division NLB.

history

The club was founded in 1939 and was promoted to the National League A in the 1959/60 season , where it was able to establish itself for more than 10 years. The high point of club life was the Swiss championship title . On February 3, 1962 they won 3-0 against HC Davos - but this championship title was not repeated. In 1964 the EHC Visp Cup was won.

Modern times

The club was in 1988, 1990, 1997 and 1999 group winners in the first division and in 1999 rose to the NLB. In this second-highest division of the national league they achieved the runner-up title in 2003, 2007 and 2010.

In 2011, the EHC Visp secured its second NLB championship title after 1960, in which they beat Lausanne HC 4-0 in the final. In 2014, the Valais won the title again, for the second time in three years. You won as an outsider against the NLA relegated SCL Tigers 4: 3 in the series.

A new club crest was presented at the beginning of the 2013/14 season.

The EHC has existed since 2001 in the form of a stock corporation that organizes and finances the game operations for 2 teams (approx. 50 active players). While the AG had planned for the 2009/10 season with a budget of CHF 2,250,000, the budget for the 2019/20 season was already CHF 4,600,000.

The youth department is outsourced to the Young Lions association and maintains a total of 12 teams (approx. 250 active players), including 1 women's, 1 senior and 9 junior teams. In addition, the EHC Visp II plays under the umbrella of the club.

present

2006/07 season

Under head coach Kevin Ryan , the EHC Visp won a large part of the home games: The Oberwallis only lost one home game after 60 minutes and two in overtime. Due to this home strength, EHC Visp was at the top of the table all season. In the first playoff round, the EHC faced canton rivals HC Sierre-Anniviers . After a home defeat, the sun offenders were then defeated four times in a row. In the semifinals, the team met the GCK Lions , who had defeated the qualifying winner SC Langenthal . The Visper also won this series with 4-1 victories. Thus the final against EHC Biel was certain. The regulations now made it possible to reinforce with foreigners. With Derek Cormier and Lee Jinman, Visp has signed two players from rivals from Sierre. Ari Vallin (Finnish international) completed the trio. In the series against Biel, the team lost 4-2, Biel achieved their fourth win in extra time.

2007/08 season

After reaching the finals last year and the team's good performance, some well-known players and coach Kevin Ryan left the club, the new head coach was John Fust , assisted by player- coach Terry Yake. Despite the departures, the EHCV was able to assert itself in the top group at the beginning of the season, this starting position was overshadowed by the positive doping results from Terry Yake. The team lost more and more constancy. Towards the end of the qualification, a winning streak of eight games was recorded and the team thus approached the first three places in the table again. This good starting position was not used and the team was pushed to fifth place by HC Ajoie on the last match day . The team's top scorer was Greg Hogeboom with 76 points. In the quarter-finals, the break was made away in the first game, but lost again in the second game. In the remaining games, the home team always won and thus the series was won by HC Ajoie 4: 3.

2008/09 season

With two new foreigners, Steve Brulé and Jason Guerriero , on the team, the start of the season went off well. After ten laps, the EHC was ranked seventh and the two foreigners were already under criticism. After Guerriero's injury, the surplus foreigner from SC Langenthal ( Marco Charpentier ) and Cory Pecker , who had fallen out of favor in Lausanne , were temporarily hired . Pecker was then definitely taken over by Lausanne HC . In addition, the SCL Tigers signed the surplus striker Roman Botta . These squad mutations also had an impact on the table, little by little the Oberwallis team pushed their way towards the top. After completing the qualification and the intermediate round, the EHC Visp placed second. When choosing the playoff opponent, the Vispers could choose as the second team and they decided on the EHC Olten . In this playoff series, the Brulé-Pecker duo played a big role and decided the series almost single-handedly (4-1 wins). After the solo gymnastics, the semi-finals were against HC La Chaux-de-Fonds . The Neuchâtel proved to be too strong for the EHC Visp. The series thus also went to the “Chaux-fonnier” with 4-0 victories. However, all goals of EHC Visp Sport AG were achieved with the classification in the top 4 (2nd place) and with reaching the playoff semifinals.

2009/10 season

With the signing of Canadian Dominic Forget , coach John Fust was able to add another strong striker to his squad. EHC Visp got off to a successful start in the 2009/10 season and after a short time took the lead in the table. Visp finished the qualification with 95 points in first place. With 224 goals, the NLB qualifier scored by far the most goals of all teams. Almost half of this went to the account of the striker duo Forget-Pecker, who also led the top scorer classification of the NLB after the preliminary round with 105 and 101 points respectively .

Coach John Fust announced his move to the SCL Tigers from Langnau after the end of the season. Shortly afterwards, the club officials introduced Réal Paiement as his successor. In the playoff quarter-finals, Visp won against Basel 4-0 in the series. In the semifinals, against their cantonal rivals Sierre , Visp won the first three games. After that, the team lost twice after extra time, but won the sixth game, winning the series 4-2. Visp had reached its season goal by reaching the finals. Visp lost the final against HC Lausanne 4-1 in the series, although it still won the first game. The EHC Visp was behind the Vaud runners-up in the National League B of the 2009/10 season.

2010/11 season

With the foreigners Dominic Forget and Steve Brulé and under the direction of Réal Paiement, Visp played a solid qualification in the 10/11 season. In October Paiement was released due to insufficient results. For him, Michel Zeiter took over as player-coach on an interim basis, and in December the Canadian Bob Mongrain joined the gang. The team finished 6th in the qualification. After Visp eliminated SC Langenthal 4: 2 in the quarter-finals and HC La Chaux-de-Fonds in the semi-finals 4: 3, they beat the league and promotion candidates HC Lausanne 4: 0 games. So you could celebrate the second NLB championship title after 1960. In the games for promotion, EHC Visp lost 4-1 to HC Ambrì-Piotta .

2011/12 season

The coach was also called Bob Mongrain in 2011/12. Another Canadian, Alexandre Tremblay, joined Dominic Forget . In the qualification Visp reached the 4th place. Visp secured a place in the semi-finals with a 4-1 win in the quarter-finals of the playoffs over EHC Olten , which they lost 4-0 to HC Lausanne .

2012/13 season

Forget and Tremblay also formed the foreign duo at the beginning of the new season. Michel Zeiter, who retired as a player, took over from Bob Mongrain on the gang. In December Tremblay's contract was terminated and Domenico Pittis came in his place until the end of the season. Visp finished the qualification in fifth place. In the playoffs they were eliminated in the quarter-finals with 1: 4 against HC Lausanne .

2013/14 season

With the engagement of the former Russian NHL professional, Stanley Cup winner, Olympic champion and U20 junior world champion Alexei Kowaljow , the EHC Visp achieved a sensational transfer.

The start of the season failed thoroughly, at times the Upper Valais even ranked last in the table. The club pulled the rip cord and filled the coaching post with Kim Collins . Long-time player Forget also had to leave the club, he was replaced by James Desmarais . Visp recovered and finished the qualification in fifth place. The team was able to improve in the playoffs. Kowaljow and Desmarais shot Visp practically single-handedly against HC Red Ice (4: 0) in the semifinals. There they defeated SC Langenthal 4: 3. The EHC Visp rose to the final as an outsider and prevailed in a hard-fought series against the SCL Tigers 4-3 . In the league promotion games they lost to EHC Biel with 1: 4.

2015/16 season

The EHC Visp finished the qualification of the 2015/16 season in sixth place. In the quarter-finals, the team had to admit defeat to EHC Olten with 3: 4 defeats in the best-of-7 series.

Season 2016/17

Under the direction of coach John Fust , the qualification was finished as seventh in the table. The end of the season overtook Visper in the playoff quarter-finals against HC La Chaux-de-Fonds with 1: 4 games. Subsequently, Fust's expiring contract was not extended, and sports director Alex Kowalew also had to give up his position.

Season 2017/18

In April 2017, the Finn Matti Alatalo was signed as the new head coach. The team finished the qualification in seventh place. EHC Visp was eliminated in the quarter-finals against SC Langenthal with 2: 4 wins.

Season 2018/19

Head coach Matti Alatalo stayed at EHC Visp throughout the season. The qualification was completed in sixth place. Visp met EHC Olten in the playoff quarter-finals and was eliminated 4-0 in the series.

Season 2019/20

EHC Visp started the new season with head coach Matti Alatalo. Since the two foreigners Troy Josephs and Mark van Guilder injured themselves during the test phase, the Finn Michael Keränen was signed as a replacement . The EHC finished the qualification in fourth place and thus secured the home advantage in the playoff quarter-finals against HC Thurgau. Visp won the series against Thurgau 4-1 and made it back to the semi-finals against HC Ajoie for the first time since 2014. However, the playoffs were canceled before the semi-finals due to the coronavirus epidemic .

Season 2020/21

In June, the EHC Visp signed Melvin Merola from HC Thurgau .

Women

The women's ice hockey department was founded on November 19, 1995 as an independent member of the EHC Visp family. Training was initially carried out once a week under the guidance of Peter Baldinger. From 1997/98 the team mainly took part in junior tournaments. For the 1998/99 season it took part in the Swiss ice hockey championship for the first time and took seventh place in the NLC group under coach Christian Lowiner. In the following years, the team established itself in the LKC, before being promoted to performance class B in 2005 . In 2008 , EHC Visp was promoted to performance class A as part of a league upgrade .

Fans

The EHC Visp has always had a loyal following. For many years it has been one of the three NLB clubs with the highest number of spectators. On average, more than 3500 fans attend the games. Sales of season tickets have been rising steadily for years, and a new record was broken in the 2013/14 season with over 2,200. After the bankruptcy of the cantonal rival HC Sierre , more and more spectators from the French-speaking part of the canton attend the Visper games. In addition to companies from all over Upper Valais, the club has also been able to win sponsors from Lower Valais in recent years. The announcements made by the stadium speaker are in German and French.

Various fan clubs have been founded over the years. Some of them were dissolved again. The fan clubs Litterna Lions `11 and One Passion currently exist .

Venue

The Litterna Hall, in which the EHC Visp plays its home games, is also closely linked to the history of the EHC Visp . The first ice rink with grandstands was opened in 1956. In 1978 the last game of the EHC Visp took place on the ice field in the open air. Since then, it has been played in the Litterna Hall, which was built in 1979. The ice rink, which is located in the middle of a residential area , also houses a small bistro and seats 4,300. There is another smaller ice rink next to it, which the curling club uses.

During the ice-free period, the Litterna Hall is also used for various exhibitions or cultural events, such as concerts.

A new construction project for a multifunctional ice rink at a new location in the municipality is well advanced. Depending on the financial situation, a comprehensive renovation of the existing Litterna hall is also being considered as an alternative.

On August 23, 2019, the last game against canton rivals HC Siders Annivers took place in the 40-year-old Litterna-Halle , which EHC Visp won 1-0. The new Lonza Arena will be inaugurated on September 6, 2019 .

Well-known former players

Web links

Commons : EHC Visp  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ EHC Visp Sport AG: First steps for the 2017/18 season. Retrieved March 3, 2017 .
  2. ↑ EHC Visp Sport AG: Matti Alatalo becomes head coach of the EHC Visp. Retrieved April 19, 2017 .
  3. ↑ EHC Visp Sport AG: Michael Keränen changes to EHC Visp. Retrieved September 5, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Swiss Ice Hockey Federation: All Swiss ice hockey championships have been canceled. Retrieved March 13, 2020 .
  5. ^ EHC Visp Sport AG: Melvin Merola to the EHC Visp. Retrieved June 28, 2020 .
  6. ↑ EHC Visp Women - How it all began ( Memento from June 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Markus Pianzola: Start of the LKA adventure. In: rsteck.ch. Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
  8. ↑ The conductor of the Visper. In: Tages-Anzeiger of September 13, 2012