The 2008/09 season of the Austrian ice hockey league was played with only four teams, as several participants from the previous season had voluntarily renounced to participate, mostly for financial reasons. The defending champions were the ATUS Weiz Bulls , but they were unable to defend their championship. The newly founded ATSE Graz became the new master .
With the Tarco Wölfen Klagenfurt and the ATUS Weiz ("Bulls"), only two of the five teams from last year are taking part in the league again this year. New are a farm team from Black Wings Linz and the revitalized ice hockey section of ATSE Graz . The EC Kitzbühel withdrew its entry shortly before the start of the league due to a lack of staff, the EV Niederösterreich even only after three rounds of play. So this year only four teams will take part instead of the planned six.
mode
In the basic round (September 27, 2008 to February 7, 2009) a three-fold round trip was played, all four teams played in the semi-finals in the best of three mode for the finals. The final was the best of five series from February 28th. Saturday was generally the game day. The master was determined by March 28, 2009 at the latest.
Basic round
After a long period of uncertainty about the field of participants, the basic round began with the game of the newcomer ATSE Graz against the reigning champions ATUS Weiz Bulls, which the ATSE clearly won 9: 1. As a result, the ATSE and the Tarco Wolves from Klagenfurt quickly set themselves apart from the other two participants. The farm team of the EHC Linz in particular had big problems and had to wait a long time for further points to be gained after their opening win against the ATSE. In the course of the season goalkeeper Philipp Meichernitsch from KSV ice hockey club from the National League came to ATSE and took over there for the ailing Peter Rabanser.
At the end of the basic round, the Tarco Wölfe and ATSE Graz had a clear lead in the table, so the final pairing seemed to be certain from the start. At that time, the ATSE was still pursuing the goal of advancing to the National League as quickly as possible and strengthened itself before the playoffs with the two Slovenian players Jaka Avgustinčič and Dejan Kontrec, both of whom had already gained experience in the Erste Bank Eishockey Liga .
As expected, ATSE Graz and Tarco Wölfe prevailed against their respective opponents with 2-0 victories in the semifinals. The final began with an extremely narrow victory for the Tarco Wolves in the shootout. As a result, thanks to the two newcomers and a very strong Philipp Meichernitsch in goal, the ATSE proved to be the much stronger team that won the final series with three clear wins.
Play-off tree
Semifinals
final
1
EC Tarco Wolves Klagenfurt
2
4th
Black Wings Linz / II
0
1
EC Tarco Wolves Klagenfurt
1
2
ATSE Graz
3
2
ATSE Graz
2
3
Weiz Bulls
0
Individual results semi-finals
Tarco Wölfe Klagenfurt (1) against Black Wings Linz / II (4): 4: 2, 5: 0
Goalkeepers: Philipp Meichernitsch, Peter Rabanser, Bernhard Streit
Defenders: Alexandre Dodier, Michael Grundauer, Michael Günther, Christoph Haas, Philipp Hofer, Florian Hutzl, Roman Klicznik
Attackers: Jaka Avgustincic, Matthias Florian, Daniel Forcher, Benjamin Gschöpf, Christian Hofmaier, Dejan Kontrec, Dominik Kraxner, Gilbert Kühn, Gerald Marchl, Peter Preis, Tobias Prudenziati, Thomas Rack, Christian Widauer
SloveniaSloveniaItaly
Head coach: Timo Sutinen
Ascent / descent
The ATSE Graz secured the championship in the first season since the founding sporting qualification for the National League, but will not take the climb to complete. Since the two teams KSV Eishockeyklub and EV Zeltweg , also from Styria , decided to switch from the National League to the Oberliga in the 2009/10 season , the ATSE Graz will also remain in the Oberliga due to the better attendance at derbies . This means that it will be held with eight teams in the 2009/10 season.