Ice hockey in Krefeld
Ice hockey is one of the most popular sports in Krefeld . The first club was founded in 1936. The Krefeld Penguins play in the highest German league, the DEL . Preussen Krefeld was also successful in the post-war period, when it ceased ice hockey in 1971.
There are three ice rinks in Krefeld, the Rheinlandhalle , the Werner-Rittberger-Halle and the Yayla-Arena . On July 16, 1963, the German Ice Hockey Federation was founded in Krefeld.
Willi Münstermann
Following the approval of the city fathers with a temporary lease of building land, Willi Münstermann built an open-air stadium on Hindenburgstrasse with space for 8,000 spectators. At that time, the city of Krefeld was required to return the stadium and property after 50 years of lease. In winter, the Hindenburg Stadium - later the Rhineland Hall - was used as an ice rink. In the summer, Münstermann quickly converted the stadium into a swimming pool with a sun lounger and had North Sea sand brought in for this. Instead of one team, he started with two ice hockey teams - with a professional team from the ice hockey motherland Canada and an amateur team from Krefeld. The overseas professionals financed themselves through guest tours abroad and, thanks to their successes, ensured the necessary publicity in Krefeld.
For the compilation of these "German Canadiens", later popularly called "Krefeld Canadians", Münstermann hired the Canadian national coach Bobby Hoffinger . On November 7, 1936, 8,000 spectators watched the first game of a Krefeld ice hockey team. The opponent of the Canadiens was the Berlin ice skating club , at that time a top club in Germany. The game ended 0-0. Another game against Berlin a few days later the Canadiens won 2-1. From then on, the team hurried from victory to victory and filled the stadiums of the German Reich . Numerous guest appearances abroad brought on the one hand money to maintain the team and on the other hand international recognition. A highlight was the game against the World Cup team of Canada , which ended 2-2 in front of 8,000 spectators. The amateur team was also built up for the future.
KEV 1936
The Krefeld Ice Skating Club 1936 eV - "KEV" for short -, the first ice hockey club in Krefeld , was formed from the amateur team . The game was initially played with a team reinforced by two Canadians from the "German Canadiens". Hardly had an ice hockey season been played in Krefeld when the KEV was a fixture and the "Sold out" sign was often on the stadium gates. After two years, the people of Krefeld were so popular with athletes that the "bought in" Canadians were bid farewell.
The Second World War also claimed its victims in Krefeld, and so ice hockey was near the end in Krefeld. But it was Willi Münstermann who revived ice hockey in Krefeld. Under the British occupation he achieved the renovation of the stadium and in 1946 the Rhenish Championship was held in Krefeld . The ex- "German Canadien" Frank Schwinghammer took care of building up a new team, who returned to Krefeld from Canada immediately after the war for this purpose. That was also the time when a second Krefeld ice hockey club was founded with the KTSV Preußen .
German champion 1951
The first championship
In the 1950/51 season, the KTSV Preussen Krefeld won the German championship for the first time . On March 2, 1951, the decisive game against EV Füssen took place in the sold out ice rink . Thousands of fans, who couldn't get a ticket, waited in front of the stadium gates. The Prussians defeated EV Füssen 3-2 after a 0-2 deficit. Outstanding players in the championship team from Krefeld were Gösta "Lulle" Johansson from Sweden, goalkeeper Heinz Wackers , Ēriks Koņeckis , Walter Kremershof, Rudi Weide and Herbert Schibukat.
German champion 1952
The second championship
A year later, the KEV also received championship honors. Prussia Krefeld was so decimated at SC Riessersee that another championship was out of the question. The KEV team was in first place after the scoring round with SC Riessersee, so that the champions had to be determined in a decider. On March 12, 1952, this took place in the Mannheim stadium. After a 4-4 draw in the meantime, the Krefeld players turned up again. All of Bayern's attacking efforts failed because of the excellent KEV defense, which with goalkeeper Ulli Jansen had secure support. KEV won with two more goals from Pescher and Walter Schmidinger with 6: 4 goals. That was the first championship for KEV and the second for Krefeld.
Ice Hockey World Championship 1955
The 1955 World Cup was a success with the venue in Krefeld . More than 10,500 spectators in the overcrowded - now covered - Rheinlandhalle saw a 5-0 victory of the Canadian world championship team against the team from Russia in the final .
After the World Cup, Willi Münstermann withdrew from the ice hockey scene and now there was a lack of money and support. Internal power struggles followed and the fronts between the Prussians and the KEV hardened. Both clubs struggled to join the top of German ice hockey, but mostly fought against relegation. The Prussians had to go twice to the second class. The financially badly ailing Prussians gave up in July 1971 and stopped playing. The Prussian stock was taken over by the KEV. At first, the KEV could not benefit from this increase in staff and fought - although reinforced by good young players from Sweden , Canada and Czechoslovakia - for three more seasons against relegation from the Bundesliga .
Vice champion 1977
At the beginning of the 1974/75 season , KEV turned the trend. In addition to a new coach - Jiri Pokorny - excellent players have been signed: the Czech goalkeeper Jan Marek, the strikers Miro Slezak and Günther Kaczmarek, as well as the defensive strategists Frank Neupert, Harald Kadow and FX Müller. The Dutch-Canadian Dick Decloe also came to Krefeld. In the following years, with the help of his most important player Lothar Kremershof, Decloe became the top scorer in the Bundesliga several times. Later other people like Wolfgang Hellwig and the Swede Stefan Karlsson joined them. Other players in the KEV squad included a. In goal: Wolfgang Soltau (originally from the youth of Preussen Krefeld, multiple junior national goalkeeper), in defense: Jochen Metz, Krefeld's own generation, Dirk Kempkes, came from the KEV junior team; Forwards: Hansi Schaub, Klaus Krawinkel (both well-known Krefeld players) and Vaclav Koukal, an old veteran. In the end, the third place jumped out, in the following season 1975/76 they came fourth.
There was a further upswing with the 1976/77 season . With the supermarket wholesaler Heinz Holtschneider as the new chairman, a financially strong man was found. The team was further strengthened and now the championship is the goal. Otto Schneitberger became the trainer , who ended his active career at KEV last season. Petr Hejma and the Guggemos brothers were signed and Dick Decloe brought a defense attorney with him from Canada: Vic Stanfield . Stanfield emerged as one of the league's strongest defenders and later became a Krefeld idol. His shirt number 4 is no longer awarded in Krefeld today. With this team, KEV made it to the top of the table several times during the season. The Rheinlandhalle was almost always sold out. Ultimately, it wasn't enough to win the title. At the end of the season, the KEV reached the runner-up in 1977.
EHC Krefeld 1978
Also in the 1977/78 season Krefeld was still in ice hockey fever. The almost unchanged team was at the top of the table at the turn of the year. At the end of the season, the KEV was in fourth place. A new team was formed and a new coach, Danny Malone, was hired. But this new team should never play a game. In July 1978 bankruptcy had to be filed with the Krefeld District Court . In previous years they had overdone themselves financially and debts were not properly shown in the balance sheets . All rescue attempts failed and on August 4, 1978 the DEB finally revoked the KEV's license .
After KEV went bankrupt, you had to start over in the fourth-class regional league. The EHC Krefeld as the successor club to the KEV started under the chairmanship of Willy Furth with a team of junior players and old, long-inactive Bundesliga players. The coach was Remy Wellen, who also made himself available as a player. The team was overqualified for the regional league and was superior to its opponents. The EHC's competitors were sometimes defeated and the results were absurd. RSC Bielefeld lost 0:48 in front of over 4,000 spectators in the Rheinlandhalle. The promotion to the league was made.
As a reminder, the names of all players from the 1978/79 season:
- Goal: Helmut Jentges, Hans-Richard "Henne" Obermann, Carlo Jahr
- Defense: Thomas Jentges, Manfred Sieburg, Vladimir Potucek, Horst Schüten, Dieter Schirbach, Werner Oberheidt, Jürgen Scherberich
- Storm: Laurens Keussen, Frank Hakenewert, Frank Grünen, Uli Wyes, Bernd Hadamik, Dirk Kempkes, Paul Pawelczyk, Horst Metzer, Roland Kisler, Helmut Remen, Bernd Peltzer, Christophe Roessli
- Trainer: Remy Waves
With the promotion to the league in 1979/80, the team was almost completely restructured. Most of the ex-Bundesliga players reactivated last year announced their final resignation. The most valuable newcomers were Fritz Rottluff and the two Canadians Francis "Buddy" Power and Gordon Stanfield, a younger brother of Vic Stanfield. With the former national player Horst Ludwig as coach, the direct march into the 2nd Bundesliga should now succeed. Ultimately, this also succeeded, although the KEV initially just missed the promotion. Hamburger SV , which was better placed in the end, declared that it would not be promoted for financial reasons and the EHC was allowed to move up as promoted team.
Promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga
With the 1980/81 season, the EHC started - again under the name "KEV 1981 eV" from 1981 - into an eleven-year second class. Often the KEV belonged to the group of aspirants for promotion, but - although well-known players like z. For example, the returnees Vic Stanfield , Lothar Kremershof and Günther Kaczmarek and excellent goal scorers from overseas such as Ken Kuzyk, Kenny Brown or NHL star Bob Crawford were only able to return to the 1st Bundesliga in 1991 under the leadership of chairman Uli Urban .
Promotion to the 1st Bundesliga
After the start of the 1990/91 season , KEV was at the bottom of the table and Uli Urban made drastic changes to the team during the current season. With Mike Zettel a Canadian coach was signed and the 44-time Czech national goalkeeper "Witcher" Karel Lang , goal scorer François Sills and the technician Peter Jedrus signed. As a result, the team hurried around the team captain Uwe Fabig almost from victory to victory and in the end achieved second place in the promotion round. With this, KEV played twelfth place in the upper house with the Bundesliga penultimate PEV Weißwasser . In the decisive third game, the KEV defeated the opponents from the east 6: 1 in front of 6,000 spectators and managed to return to the top division. The player with the No. 1 goal played a major role in this development over the years. Karel Lang, who joined KEV in the year of advancement, became a crowd favorite in Krefeld. In 1995, the KEV was again on the brink of failure when the then first chairman Hans-Ulrich Urban had to go to the bankruptcy judge in the summer . This time the rescue attempts were fruitful and the license for the 1995/96 season was granted. In the summer of 1995, KEV Pinguine Eishockey GmbH was founded, which holds the license for KEV in the German Ice Hockey League, which has now been established. Since returning to the top German league, the Krefeld team has almost always reached the play-offs and was able to advance to the semi-finals in 1995.
German champion 2003
The 2003 play-offs
In the 2003 play-offs , the KEV penguins moved into sixth place. In the quarter-finals, the team first met the DEG Metro Stars , against whom they prevailed with 4-1 victories. In the semi-finals, the team met the Eisbären Berlin . The polar bears won the first game 4-1 before the KEV won the following three encounters and reached the final.
In the final series, the team met the Kölner Haie and won the first two matches of the series. In games three and four, the Haie won 3: 2 and 3: 2 n.V. and equalized in the series. The decisive fifth game in the series was played in the KölnArena . The Penguins won after a 0-1 deficit with goals from Günter Oswald , Christoph Brandner and Steffen Ziesche 3-1. After 1951 and 1952, this meant the third German ice hockey championship for Krefeld.
After the championship
The expectations for the next season were of course high, but the Krefeld Penguins could no longer build on their success. Too many master players left the club. The play-offs were missed in both the 2003/04 and 2004/05 seasons .
Even before the championship, the decision to build a new multifunctional arena was decided and so the KönigPALAST was inaugurated in December 2004 and the Rhineland Hall was adopted in a ceremony.
SC Krefeld / EHC Krefeld Niederrhein
Parallel to the establishment of the EHC Krefeld in 1978, the ice skating club Krefeld 1978 eV was founded on March 22, 1978 by students from the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences . The club limited itself from the beginning to amateur hockey. From 1979/80 the team played in the Landesliga NRW. In 1979 the Eiszeiten association had to fight against the city of Krefeld. In the following decades the team played in different leagues of the state association of North Rhine-Westphalia.
In January 2009 the ice hockey department of the SCK was spun off under the name EHC Krefeld Niederrhein eV . The club gave itself the name Preussen as a nickname and also uses a logo with the traditional eagle of the Preussen Krefeld. With the spin-off, the club was also run more professionally, including by ex-national player Udo Kießling . As a result, the club rose twice and played in the fifth-rate NRW league in the 2010/11 season. The game operations are carried out by the DEC Ihrishockeyclub , where, similar to the Ebbsfleet United model , members can directly influence the management of the club via an internet portal. For example, a promotion at the Green Table was rejected by the members twice . The EHC games took place in the Rheinlandhalle.
Prussia Krefeld 2011/12
For the 2011/12 season , EHC Krefeld and KEV 81 founded the Preussen Krefeld syndicate, which took part in the Oberliga West with the license from EHC Krefeld Niederrhein . The Prussians were reinforced with players from the KEV junior team. The background to this was threatened fines, as they had not reported any junior or senior team. In the following season 2012/13 the cooperation was terminated again. The KEV 81 took over the starting place in the major league for one season , the EHC Krefeld started in the regional league NRW. In 2013 the EHC was promoted to the NRW League, in 2014 it stopped playing.
Lothar Kremershof Cup
The first Lothar Kremershof Cup took place in 2004 in memory of the deceased player and coach Lothar Kremershof . The organizers are the Big Old Boys, the traditional team of the Krefeld EV. Many guests and teams, including Vic Stanfield, Bruce Hardy, Dick Decloe, Johnny Walker, Steve McNeal, Francois Sills, Jim Hoffmann and ice hockey legends such as Karel Lang, Willi Mühlenhaus, Uwe Schaub and Uwe Fabig made the tournament a success. The traditional team of the Düsseldorfer EG won the tournament.
The 2nd Cup took place in November 2005. This time the traditional team of Kassel Huskies , the "Kassel Beck's Boys" prevailed in the final against the Krefeld team and won the tournament. The evening all-star game became a success with the appearance of the Hanson Brothers (Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson and David Hanson) from the film “ Schlapposh ”.
In 2006 the 3rd Lothar Kremershof Cup took place again in the Rhineland Hall and partly in the Royal Palace . At this edition of the tournament, the traditional Krefeld team , the "Big Old Boys", secured the tournament victory.
In 2007 there was a new edition of the "LoLa-Cup". On 2/3 November 2007 the "Big Old Boys" were again the organizers and thus the LoLa-Cup went into its 4th edition. The BoB's were again the winners and thus defended their title. An all-star game did not take place for the first time this year.
Individual evidence
- ^ Rp-online.de, Association blesses ice hockey marriage
- ↑ rp-online.de, KEV 81 starts in the top league
- ↑ ehc-krefeld.de, Preussen start in the Bezirksliga ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
