As the curtain began to fall, Duanne Moeser was no longer on the players’ bench. He stood a few meters away, where the players come out of the locker room and step onto the ice, at the point where he himself stepped on the Augsburg ice thousands of times. There the camera captured him watching the final minutes of the last home game of the season – and probably the last Augsburg DEL home game for an indefinite period of time. What thoughts went through his head?
Hardly anyone knows the Augsburg DEL history as intimately as Moeser, he himself has shaped it deeply. Born in Canada, he was promoted to the then new German ice hockey league with Augsburger EV, that was in 1994. He is still the record scorer for the Panthers today, and his number 7 jersey hangs under the roof of the Curt Frenzel Stadium. After the end of his playing career, he switched to the management of the club, the AEV lists him on its homepage as simply and comprehensively as a “legend”. But now, after 29 years in the premier league, time in the DEL seems to be running out for founding member Augsburg. 14th place – penultimate. And because two teams will probably have to be relegated this season…
“Mr. Moeser, how emotional is this moment for you?” the man from Magentasport wanted to know after Friday’s 3: 4 against the Berlin polar bears. “The Augsburg Panthers are my life,” says the 59-year-old, and his eyes redden. “That’s why it’s so difficult.”
The main round of the DEL is over, 420 games without corona failures, that was one of the good news of the 2022/23 season. EHC Red Bull Munich (122 points, club record) has been top of the table for a long time, Ingolstadt, Mannheim, Straubing and Wolfsburg have qualified directly for the quarter-finals (from March 14), Bremerhaven and Nuremberg for the pre-playoffs. But what was the end of this weekend?
With a long-distance Rhenish duel for the last safe place in the quarter-finals, which the Kölner Haie (8:2 against Bietigheim) snatched away from the Düsseldorfer EG (0:4 against Mannheim) in the last meters. With a dramatic finale, but above all for record champions Eisbären Berlin, who only had to win in Augsburg on Friday in order to preserve their last tiny chance of defending the title; with Berlin fans who, after the 4-3 win (after a 4-0 lead), begged the Augsburg players to win at cheeky promoted Frankfurt on Sunday in order to give the Eisbären their minimal chance; who then didn’t manage to defeat Schwenningen themselves on Sunday – and thus missed the playoffs for the first time since 2001.
Augsburg celebrates itself as a farewell – it is a farewell for an indefinite period
Augsburg versus Berlin, stumbling traditional club against stumbling defending champion, that was one thing, maybe the Duel this DEL season. By January at the latest, even the biggest optimists in Augsburg realized that they should better prepare for the worst when, on Friday the 13th, the AEV lost another game 3:4 after two grotesque referee decisions – again against Berlin. The mistakes of the referees decided neither this game nor the season. “It’s sad, but we weren’t good enough,” admitted Duanne Moeser. But after that game in Berlin, the Panthers’ morale was at least higher – the 3:4 against the Eisbären on Friday was their 19th defeat by just one goal.
Although there is still a vague prospect of remaining in the class, if none of the declared candidates for promotion – Kassel, Krefeld and Dresden – should ultimately win the title in the DEL2; it will be two months before that happens. “But the DEL 2 is realistic for us,” said Maximilian Horber, one of Panther’s managing partners. With Swabian realism, they have therefore been working since January to create a framework for the future from the shards of this season. “We’ve been planning on two tracks for weeks,” Horber said at a sponsor event the week before last.
Some of the major donors have already pledged their support for the coming season – regardless of the league. The Panthers confirmed what is perhaps the most important change on Saturday: Christof Kreutzer, 55, formerly head coach of the Düsseldorfer EG and most recently sports director of the Schwenninger Wild Wings, will become the new coach and also sports director of the Panthers. The Augsburgers were able to announce the personnel so early because Schwenningen also missed the playoffs.
“We’ll be back”: The Augsburg Panthers, front left TJ Trevelyan, say goodbye to their supporters – and probably also to the DEL.
(Photo: Goldberg/Beautiful Sports/Imago)
Bad for Schwenningen, good for the German Ice Hockey Federation: Wild Wings coach Harold Kreis can now concentrate on his job as the new national coach. Bad news for Berlin, good news for Kreis: He can access the Berlin national team early on in preparation for the World Cup. Because the polar bears were leading against Schwenningen, while Augsburg was actually ahead in Frankfurt in the meantime, but lost their 2-0 lead, even fell behind, equalized in the final minute to finally lose 3: 4 after a penalty shoot-out.
And so tears flowed in Berlin on Sunday while Augsburg celebrated itself. The Curt Frenzel Stadium was sold out again on Friday, and a convoy of buses drove to Frankfurt on Sunday. The shock-frozen relationship between the Panthers and their supporters had finally thawed. “We’ll be back,” chanted the fans – despite the 3-4 defeat after extra time, the 20th defeat of the season by one goal.
In the first playoff round on Tuesday, Frankfurt goes to Düsseldorf, Nuremberg to Bremerhaven, and champions Berlin: on the summer break. “We just weren’t good enough,” said Polar Bear defender Morgan Ellis. And sounded suspiciously like Duanne Moeser at that moment.