Chris McSorley, then still at Servette-Geneva, 2019. PICTURED: KEYSTONE
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Eismeister Zaugg
Chris McSorley before taking office at SC Bern
The negotiations between SCB manager and co-owner Marc Lüthi (59) and Chris McSorley (58) are about to be concluded. The charismatic Canadian should start work at SC Bern before mid-February. Not just as a sports director.
The informants from inside the largest hockey company in the country report: Marc Lüthi and Chris McSorley have agreed on the essential points (salary, area of responsibility). When the two most successful and charismatic hockey makers of the last 20 years actually team up, then the league will rock.
The SCB boss has now recognized the need for action in the sports department. From the innermost SCB circles of power it is reported: Chris McSorley will be the new head of sports and will also be entrusted with several tasks: with the expansion of the youth organization, with the expansion of the catchment area for the recruitment of juniors at the expense of Langnau and Biel, with the project of a farm team and with advice on the planned new construction of the PostFinance Arena.
The hockey group SC Bern (60 million sales) is to be comprehensively repositioned and broader in the long term. Sporty, but also infrastructural and economical and should no longer be so dependent on gastronomy in the future. Chris McSorley built up the best functioning sports company in French-speaking Switzerland from scratch in Geneva and built up excellent relationships with the Anschutz Group, one of the largest sports business and real estate companies in North America.
It is quite conceivable that Chris McSorley will start a collaboration with the billion-dollar US company. Anschutz holds 50 percent of the Los Angeles Kings (NHL) and owns the Eisbären Berlin in Europe. Entry into “Bern as a sports location” can be interesting for foreign investors and useful for both sides.
The sporting disintegration at SC Bern can only be stopped if the balance between business and sport is restored. Chris McSorley is almost certainly the only immediately available candidate who has the competence, the chutzpah and the diplomatic shrewdness to meet and disagree with Marc Lüthi on an equal footing.
Nothing stands in the way of an engagement in Bern. Chris McSorley has long since declared that he could join SC Bern overnight after disembarking from Servette. From the inner SCB circles it is also reported that Marc Lüthi does not want to fire anyone and that everything will be arranged internally before the official commitment of the former Servette-Zampano.
Sports director Florence Schelling should stay and take on a more representative role. Kind of like the Queen in England. And the sports director and current coaching assistant Alex Chatelain, who was deposed last spring, is allowed to take care of the scouting department under the guidance and supervision of Chris McSorley.
Florence Schelling should stay, but take on more representative tasks. Image: keystone
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If the most important SCB personnel since Marc Lüthi joined the company (1998), then the SCB will be a master candidate again in four years’ time. The polemical claim is correct, even the huge SCB hockey temple is not big enough to contain the egos of Marc Lüthi AND Chris McSorley. But one thing is forgotten: With all his self-confidence, Chris McSorley also has the sense of hierarchies and organizational charts in the DNA that is so typical for the North Americans. Marc Lüthi is very likely the only personality in our hockey that he respects in such a way that a conflict-free cooperation on equal terms is possible.
Prior to all major actions in world history (such as Pearl Harbor, Operations Overlord or the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz), absolute radio silence was ordered by the highest authorities. For the first time since his arrival in Geneva (2001), Chris McSorley has not picked up the phone in days. Obviously, absolute radio silence should keep everyone from gossiping. One of the initiates at SC Bern puts it this way: “If we assume the distance between Bern and Geneva 150 kilometers, then Chris McSorley is now less than 50 kilometers from Bern.”
With Wilhelm Busch we may soon be able to say: For a long time, the SCB was sick with the sporty soul, now it rocks again, thank God.
