Ice hockey in Hamm

Lippe Hockey Hamm
Greatest successes
Cup win 2009 (Regionalliga West) 4th place (main round of Oberliga West 2013/14) Champion Regionalliga-West 2017
Club information
history	ASV Hamm (until 1998) ESC Hamm (1998-2004) Lippe-Hockey-Hamm (since 2004)
Nickname	Hammer polar bears
Parent club	Lippe-Hockey-Hamm Young Talent Promotion eV
Club colors	red - white - blue
league	Oberliga
Venue	HeLiNet ice rink
capacity	2000 seats (including 280 seats)
executive Director	Tobias Huster (association), Jan Koch (GmbH)
Head coach	Ralf Hoja
captain	Tim Pietzko
Season 2019/20	4th place RL-West / ascent

The Hockey in Hamm is in the tradition of the hockey department of the ASV Hamm, the hammer polar bears and the Hammer Huskies . The polar bears took part in the 1st League North for three seasons , the successor club ESC Hamm - Hammer Huskies - reached the Regionalliga NRW. Today the sport in Hamm is represented by the first team of the Husky successor club Lippe-Hockey-Hamm. After the end of the 2010/11 season, the first team of young stars, organized in a game operating company, was renamed Hammer Eisbären , the umbrella club is still called Lippe-Hockey-Hamm. The team played in the third-class Oberliga West until the 2014/15 season , and since the 2015/16 season the first team has been playing in the Regional League West of the North Rhine-Westphalia Ice Hockey Association .

Ice hockey history in Hamm

ASV Hammer Eisbären (1989–1998)

The ASV Hamm coined in the 1990s, the sport in Hamm and was from the 1994-95 season in the then second division, the first League North active. The venue for the home games was normally the Maximilian ice rink in Hamm, only for games with a particularly high number of spectators and when the hall in Hamm was occupied, individual games were relocated to the much larger hall in Unna-Königsborn. The club achieved the highest number of spectators of all sports for a single club in league operations in the area of ​​the city of Hamm with usually more than 1000 visitors per home game. The 1994/95 season closed the club in the main round of the 1st division with 12th place and had to play in the relegation / promotion round and against relegation. This round you finished first in the table. The 1995/96 season was despite outstanding individual players such as Jiří Kovařík and Brad Scott , as well as the pre-season, characterized by the fight against relegation and finished bottom of the table with only 9:43 points. In the subsequently played promotion round to 1st League North they only reached seventh place and missed relegation with one point difference to sixth in the table. The club was forced to take a one-year interlude in the 2nd ice hockey league in 1996/97 , where they qualify with fourth place after the main round for the promotion round to the Bundesliga North . The Hammer Eisbären made it straight back to fifth place. The subsequent season 1997/1998 turned into a disaster due to increasing financial difficulties, athletically as 14th of 18 clubs and for the entire club, because the Hammer Eisbären could no longer end the season, two game days before the end of the season a bankruptcy application brought the end to the Society. The club had to be dissolved in the end.

ESC Hammer Huskies

The successor club of ASV Hamm was ESC Hamm , whose mascot a husky was chosen. The new club took over some of the Hammer Eisbären players who had previously become clubless and started in the lowest amateur class. The resulting team was far too strong for the league, which was reflected in corresponding double-digit results. In this and the following seasons, the club was able to rise to the regional league, a special feature on this path was the home game of SC Krefeld , which was not played in Krefeld, but in Hamm, with the income being shared. In addition to the expected good mood, the reason for this was the extremely strong competition in Krefeld, which did not allow a large number of spectators to be expected and so prompted the Krefeld authorities to play a home away game.

In the regional league, the Huskies played five successful seasons before the club stopped playing due to financial problems. The economic damage incurred was not so high compared to the polar bear bankruptcy, but the ESC Hamm eV was also dissolved.

Lippe Hockey Hamm

Goal celebration of the polar bears in the home game on November 6, 2011 against the Ratinger aliens

After the dissolution of ESC Hamm, today's association Lippe-Hockey-Hamm was founded . The primary aim of the new club was to take on the youth work of its predecessor, Hammer Huskies, whose youth department was taken over. The club decided to start a senior team again, despite the sobering bankruptcies of the previous clubs. Like ESC Hamm, the team initially started in the NRW district league. In the first three years, the Young Stars were able to advance to the regional league, then to the association league of North Rhine-Westphalia and finally to the regional league.

In the 2007/08 season , the club will play its first season in the Regionalliga NRW, the highest amateur class in German ice hockey. The club was able to enjoy its first regional league season, despite initial successes such as B. the 5: 8 away win against league favorites Herner EV , only finished eighth and reached fourth place in the subsequent relegation / cup round. In the 2008/09 season , the Young Stars reached 8th place in the finals of the Regionalliga NRW and were cup winners (1st place) in the cup round of the Regionalliga NRW.

In the 2009/10 season , the club reached third place in the main round of the Regionalliga West and just missed fourth place with 5th place in the final round, which would have entitled to participate in the play-offs . Hamm has been playing in the newly introduced Oberliga West since the 2010/11 season . The first season in the new league, which was characterized by stark contrasts in performance within the league, the club finished in 7th place out of 9. At the same time, not only Hamm struggled with low attendance and also a high level of player fluctuation, so that every game was a " another “team was played. Those responsible in Hamm took this as an opportunity to make massive changes shortly after the season and to let the first team appear under a new name and management.

First team "Hammer Eisbären"

The first team of the Hammer ice hockey club Lippe-Hockey-Hamm changed their nickname from Young Stars to the traditional name Hammer Eisbären on May 31, 2011. The other teams and the youth will continue to play under the name Youngstars.

2011/12 season

Under the new name and the team captain Carsten Plate , who entered the coaching business last year , a revival of hammer ice hockey was achieved. The team around team captain Sondermann fought for 6th place after the major league main round. For a long time the team was even able to play for 4th place and thus won back much of the lost audience of earlier times. At the end of the main round, however, the forces of the team were upset and you had to be satisfied with 8th place in the final round of the best 8 teams in the Oberliga West. After the good main round, this encouraged displeasure in the stands and in the team. Nevertheless, under the guidance of Cartsen Plate, the team surprised with a combative performance in the play offs for the DEB Cup qualification and eliminated the favored Frankfurt Lions and reached the final. In the final against Koenigsborn you finally had to admit defeat to the neighbors from Koenigsborn and missed the cup participation. Despite the upward trend, the long-serving former player and coach Carsten Plate was not renewed at the end of the season. Sven Gösch took his place for the following season. Most of the team was also disbanded and reassembled.

2012/13 season

The 2012/13 season started well at first. They prevailed against the EHC Dortmund , the Königsborner JEC and the Herford EV , and the Kassel Huskies also had to fight for a long time in their own hall to prevail. It was only with the visit of the Frankfurt Lions that the planned high-altitude flight got a blatant damper: 0:10 you went down in your own hall. The next game against Ratinger Ice Aliens could be clearly won with 0: 7 and thus remain in the top group of the league. However, Frankfurt had clearly shown the weaknesses in the hammer game, so that against the promoted Krefeld in their own hall only a 2: 1 after extra time was possible and finally the later champion Rote Teufel Bad Nauheim also won 0: 8 in Hamm. The downward trend continued despite the temporary victory against the later relegated Neusser EV , first the Dortmund team, defeated away clearly 1: 7, won 4: 6 in Hamm, then Duisburg overran the Hammer team with 9: 1. At the end of November, coach Sven Gösch finally moved to his former club EHC Timmendorfer Strand 06 and was replaced shortly after by current coach Larry Suarez . The team slowly stabilized as a result and finally reached 6th place again at the end of the main round. Last year’s 4th place, which was only 6 points short, was 14 points away at the end of this season and only the favorable results of the clubs that followed from 7th place had prevented a worse placement. In the final round, they finished seventh out of eight and thus one place better than last year, but tied to eighth in Krefeld. In the play-offs for the DEB Cup qualification they were eliminated after 4 games in the first round. Nevertheless, the season, although it did not succeed in annoying the favorites, was successful from an economic point of view, especially the attendance figures had settled at a good level. At the end of the season, a large part of the team was again no longer signed, the squad is being rebuilt again.

2013/14 season

The new season was initially characterized by some important personalities, during the season break the shareholders and management of Spielbetriebs GmbH changed. The previous shareholders, managing directors and sponsors Werner Nimmert and Tiberius Boda left the GmbH after the end of the 2012/13 season, for them Thomas Thiel and Hennig Koschei came as new managing directors and partners. The only remaining partner remained Thorsten Licht, who also took over the sporting management in the 2013/14 season. In addition, at the end of the previous season, there were indications that the coach Larry Suarez would be replaced during the summer break, so it was not surprising that at the beginning of the season, Waldemar Banaszak, the former coach of the league competitor Königsborner JEC , was replaced by the shareholders Exercise leader was presented. Waldemar Banaszak was sacked before the end of the preliminary round and was replaced by youth coach Milan Vanek sen. replaced, who ended the season with the team. The 2013/14 season was the most successful sporting event for Spielbetriebs GmbH and the club. After finishing the preliminary and main round in fourth place, the club had achieved its goal of the season long before the end of the season, a placement among the top six teams in the league and qualification for the interlinking round of the upper leagues north, east and west. The actual main round of the Oberliga West degenerated into a pure placement round to determine the group division for the interlocking. The polar bears ended the season in third place in Group A in the interlocking round. In addition to the sporty pleasing course, however, the main round, reviled by the league audience because it was insignificant in terms of sport, turned into an existential crisis for Spielbetriebs GmbH. Already on New Year's Eve 2013 the crisis became clear when the former managing director and partner Werner Nimmert had to be asked to arrange the finances of the GmbH on an interim basis. In the weeks before, the new partners Koschei and Thiel had appeared in public less and less frequently. On April 26, 2014, the Lippe-Hockey-Hamm club announced that they had registered a team for the major league; Spielbetriebs GmbH was no longer mentioned in this publication.

2014/15 season

The polar bears also competed in the Oberliga West in the 2014/15 season . Serbian international striker Nemanja Vučurević was signed by HDK Maribor as a prominent newcomer . Nevertheless, it was only enough to rank six out of eight teams. In the subsequent Oberliga Cup round with the clubs of the Oberliga West ranked 5-8 and the clubs of the Oberliga Ost that did not qualify for the Oberliga Mitte, the team confidently reached 2nd place out of 6 teams. In the home game against EHV Schönheide , the club set a new attendance record; with 1,800 spectators the hall was officially sold out.

2015/16 season

In the summer of 2015, as in previous years, there was a summer theater that unsettled the clubs, fans and sponsors about the division into leagues and the associated reporting procedure for the leagues. While the Landeseissportverband wanted to continue the Oberliga West , which was organized on behalf of the DEB , for the associations of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, the DEB planned to introduce a Oberliga Nord for all state association areas outside of the associations of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. As a result, a discussion among the clubs and fans of the previous upper leagues North, East and West started as to which league should best be reported. This was exacerbated for the western clubs by the dispute between the two sports associations and their reporting deadlines for the leagues. The Hammer Eisbären remained conservative in the dispute between the two associations, the club management decided to prefer the more economically viable solution for the entire club and decided not to report the athletically qualified team to the DEB, so that they stayed in the LEV area. By being downgraded to the fourth league - 1st League West - considerable travel and management costs that would have caused participation in the Oberliga Nord were avoided. Instead of the previous trips away within North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Neuwied in Rhineland-Palatinate, additional trips to East Germany and the like would now have been made. a. Rostock, Berlin, Leipzig and north to Hamburg, Hanover, the Harz Mountains and even the Netherlands were on the travel plan. With two games per weekend, this would have required an increase in the squad with semi and fully professional players, which was not realistic for the club after the Kenston debacle and the narrowly avoided ice rink closure. It was only the establishment of Hammer Eis EG, initiated in spring, that finally saved the facility, which was then still called Maximilian Eissporthalle, and with it the club.

Venue

HeLiNet Eissportarena, in front of the construction of the neighboring Maxi-Arena

The Hammer Eisbären carry their home games and the predecessor clubs played in the HeLiNet ice sports arena at Maximilianpark in Hamm. Only ASV Hamm often moved to the larger ice rink in Unna-Königsborn for top games. The hall has a grandstand on the western long side of the ice surface, which mostly has standing room. The grandstand is placed on top of the changing rooms and rooms for the technical equipment of the hall, as well as the parking space for the ice processing machine . The grandstand can be reached from the outside via two stairwells. In the hall, two stairways lead from the ice surface level up to the grandstand. On the south side of the play area is the piste bar and above it the panorama window of the bowling alley. In front of the bar there is additional standing room at ground level and next to it the main entrance to the ice rink. On the east side there are only the benches for the teams. The north curve of the hall offers additional standing room at ground level. Overall, the hall is approved for around 2000 spectators.

Hall of Fame

1. # 23 Bodo mixer (recorded 2011)
2. # 24 Jiří Kovařík (recorded 2012)

Web links

• Official website of the association
• Hammer Eisbären website
• Team statistics ASV Hamm'er Eisbären 1992-1998
• Team statistics ESC Hamm'er Huskies 1999-2004
• Team statistics LH Hamm from 2006

Individual evidence