“Low point”, “pre-playoffs not deserved” and “unacceptable for Bern” – one cannot accuse the protagonists of SC Bern of one thing. The disaster of missing out on 10th place isn’t talked about nicely. But are the right lessons drawn from the steady decline of the proud SCB?
In the last ten days of the championship, the Bernese lost a whopping ten points ahead of the eternal underdog Ambri-Piotta. But nobody can be really surprised by the out before the playoffs. “For the third year in a row, it was a mixed, even bad regular season,” said super sports director Raeto Raffainer at SRF last spring.
In numbers it reads like this: 2019 still champion, then 9th, 9th and now 11th – just better than the far behind SCL Tigers and Ajoie.
Bitter flight to the ground
“That’s unacceptable for Bern,” says Captain Simon Moser, one of the identification figures. “It was a bitter flight to the bottom. Now we’re at rock bottom, it needs a fresh start.” SC Bern is not the first successful club to miss this new beginning. For too long you could rely on a core of top performers, for too long the blood refreshment in the squad was delayed – also because of long-term contracts.
That made this season particularly challenging. Because eleven contracts are now running out. It’s an opportunity for change, but it’s also been a constant source of unrest around the team. Sooner or later, many players knew that they had no future at the club.
The statement from within the team kept coming: “Not everyone fights to the last.” The fire that drove Ambri-Piotta with the Leventine archetypes Luca Cereda as coach and Paolo Duca as head of sport, even in seemingly hopeless situations, was never felt in Bern.
Fans turned away
In the end, the loyal but spoiled fans turned away more and more. Officially, the SCB lost almost 2900 spectators per game compared to the pre-Corona season, in truth it should have been even more, since many season ticket holders paid their fee, but often no longer wanted to watch the matches.
This also tears a deep hole in the income from the catering business, on which SCB is more dependent than any other Swiss club.
When even victories are not enough
The fall from dominator to laughter, which arouses more glee than envy, is deep – and to a large extent self-inflicted. In the hubris of the giant rushing from success to success, victories were no longer enough for the leadership around CEO Marc Lüthi. The team should not only win soberly like under the cool but determined Finn Kari Jalonen, but please also play attractively. Now both are missing: the success and the spectacle.
In contrast to Ambri, the emotions in Bern were almost completely missing the longer the more. This was never more evident than in the third to last round, when the Ticino swept SCB 5-1 off the ice in their hall. One point would have been enough for the Bernese to reach the minimum pre-playoff goal.
chance for a fresh start
“We now have to work through everything,” emphasizes Raffainer. “It’s the Büez from me and my sports director now. Everything has been a bang since the summer.” Coach Johan Lundskog, who SC Bern, like Raffainer, had lured away from (playoff quarter-finalists) HC Davos, is also under scrutiny, but he was unable to ignite a fire in the team or give it a clear concept. Raffainer and sports director Andrew Ebbett now have the chance to rebuild the team to their liking.
With Joël Vermin, Romain Loeffel, Chris DiDomenico, Marco Lehmann and Jesse Zgraggen, five newcomers have been confirmed. Raffainer, Ebbett and their predecessors did not have a good hand, not least with the foreign positions. Only NHL-experienced Dominik Kahun met higher demands.
He leaves it open whether the German will stay or try again in the NHL. “We have boys who did their job very well. That’s positive for the future,” he said when honoring the PostFinance top scorers. And he emphasized: “If we had made it into the pre-playoffs, everything would have started again from scratch.”
You really can’t go any further down
But maybe it is even a blessing for the SCB that the total crash now makes the need for changes clear to the very last. Two numbers show the malaise very clearly: in the three seasons from 2016 to 2019, Bern won 147 games and lost 73. In the last three years, the balance is 73:101.
You almost have the feeling that you’ve gotten used to the many defeats in Bern. The advantage: From the low point, you can no longer go further down. But SCB can no longer tolerate another season like this.
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