Eisbären Berlin against RB Munich in deadline stress

Ehere’s an old saying in ice hockey. If things are going extremely well or badly for a team at the beginning of a season or a tournament, people like to be reassured: “It’s a marathon and not a sprint.” That’s true, of course, but if things are still tight on the home stretch, you’ll even sprint in a marathon.

In the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) this happens every season when the final is coming up. This year the Eisbären Berlin and the EHC Red Bull Munich are facing each other, whoever wins three times is the German champion. And this time it’s a sprint like the DEL hasn’t experienced before. It’s not just on the ice that things are moving back and forth at high speed, this applies above all to the charter planes with the teams.

Only on Thursday did the Berliners win the decisive game of the semi-final series against Mannheim, and the day after that the final against Munich began. Sunday was the second game there, which the polar bears won after two overtimes with 3:2 goals (1:1, 0:0, 1:1, 0:0, 1:0) – and after victories to 1: 1 balanced. This Monday we continue directly in Berlin. And if the series is not decided then, the teams will meet again on Wednesday in Munich, if necessary for the decisive fifth duel on Thursday in Berlin.

If that happens, the polar bears will have played six games in eight days, three times there were less than 24 hours between two games. The reason: The DEL season has to end this week because of the World Cup starting on May 13 in Finland. And the arena at Berlin’s Ostbahnhof had no other dates available for the beginning of May. The original planning called for an earlier start of the play-offs and thus also of the final series, then the schedule would have been more equalized.

“We know that this is not ideal”

But then the main round was extended by a week to make up for the many games that had been canceled due to corona outbreaks. From an economic point of view, the round of points is much more important, because then all teams can earn money, not just those that go far in the play-offs. Whether the already rich clubs from Berlin and Munich earn a little more or less in the final is of less interest from Augsburg to Iserlohn to Bremerhaven.

So in February the shareholders of the 15 clubs voted to extend the main round, says Gernot Tripcke. The DEL boss doesn’t seem very happy with it, but their hands were tied: “These are the end of the Corona season. We know that’s not ideal, but I don’t know anyone who could tell us how it would have been better.”

An alternative would have been shortened play-offs again, then just two instead of three wins per round would have been enough to advance, as in the previous season. Nobody wanted that. “And if we hadn’t pushed in the catch-up week, 20 main round games would have been canceled in front of spectators – with all the economic and sporting effects.” Several teams were still fighting for the play-offs or staying in the class. If that had been decided by the points quotient, the outcry would have been even bigger than it is now in a fast finale.

But of course there is still criticism. The scheduling was “extremely unfortunate,” said Eisbären managing director Thomas Bothstede during the semifinals, and the schedule “wouldn’t do justice to a final.” Which cannot be denied when a league has been looking for two finalists since September and then pulls it all off in a few days. This is borderline not only in terms of the level of sport and the health of the players who have hardly recovered, but more breathing space between the games would also have been advantageous economically.

Neither the league nor the clubs were able to market the high point of the season properly. As soon as the pairing was established, it started. You could see that in the number of spectators, in Berlin only 10,000 fans came to the first final, and the hall was by no means sold out. But those who were there experienced a gripping game. The polar bears led 3-0 before the more rested Munich team turned up the heat and won 4-3. So the Berliners were under pressure on Sunday – and withstood it. But it’s not right to dwell on the past for long anyway, it’s already going on this Monday.