The Chur goalkeeper Renato Tosio prevented direct SCB promotion in 1986. Image: KEYSTONE
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Unforgettable
SCB or ZSC, that was the question – how the Bernese rose to the green table in 1986
April 7, 1986: The appeal chamber of the SEHV ends a bad dispute: the Zurich SC gets off, the SC Bern at the green table. Depending on the reading, this act was a normal process or a scandal. There is still a lot of discussion about this today.
The Zurich SC (today ZSC Lions) and the SC Bern have been united in the top division since 1989 and are indispensable sizes of Swiss ice hockey. During this time they became Swiss champions 16 times.
Anyone who takes the long-lasting dominance of the two major clubs for granted can recall that both of them had great difficulty in establishing themselves reasonably well in the 1980s. The outcome of the 1981/82 season was particularly bitter.
The SCB is lost to Arosa. Image: KEYSTONE
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In the then main round of Nationalliga A, which consisted of eight teams, the SCB finished seventh, the ZSC eighth. They had to assert themselves in the promotion / relegation round, in which six teams were concerned with two places in the upper house. Lugano and Ambri-Piotta were highly superior and gave Ticino a double climb. Bern and Zurich descended synchronously.
The Relegation 1981/82:
image: screenshot wikipedia
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This was too much for the hockey boss of “Sport”, a proven specialist. In an editorial on the front, he appealed to the flexibility of the national association SEHV: the NLA is to be increased by subito decree to ten teams. Swiss ice hockey cannot afford to let the representatives of the two largest ice hockey market centers play against opponents like Wetzikon and Grindelwald.
In the 1980s, the “Bergler” were still superior to the “Städter”. Image: KEYSTONE
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Zurich and Bern are the cities with the greatest audience potential, so they should be the beneficiaries of the increase that is overdue anyway. The increase would finally also enable the introduction of the playoffs (which were actually introduced in 1985). The specialist journalist argued with a lot of logic and also wrote: “Exceptional circumstances justify exceptional measures.”
The postulate was never put on the agenda in the association. It would have been a trick that the NL Committee could never have allowed. The SCB only missed out on the NLA position, but the ZSC only finished fifth in the poule, still behind Sierre. The people of Zurich would not only have had to do their doctorate artificially, but also have to be piloted past the Valais. The postulate of “sport” was nevertheless meant seriously. The newspaper was published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while April 1, 1982 fell on a Thursday.
The freak out of Vögeli
Another decree became a fact four years later because it was inevitable. This time it wasn’t about ZSC / SCB as well as, but about ZSC / SCB either or. The final verdict of the SEHV Appeals Chamber on April 7, 1986 stated that the Zurich SC was relegated tenth and last of the NLA and that SC Bern took second place in the NLB, which had been freed up by the voluntary withdrawal of EHC Arosa. Bern had failed in the promotion games due to Chur or Renato Tosio. The appeal chamber denied the Zurich residents’ objection.
The qualification 1985/86:
image: screenshot wikipedia
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The NL Committee made its first decision on the issue – the voluntary relegation of a club was not provided for in the regulations – on March 19. The lawyer Anton Cottier held the meeting with the other committee members and club representatives on the premises of his law firm in Freiburg. That Wednesday afternoon, the journalists waited in front of a locked door on wooden chairs. Before they were told the decision, they knew what had hit it.
The unmistakable voice of Sepp Vögeli could be heard from inside. The director of the Hallenstadion cursed and insulted the committee members. When the door opened, Vögeli came out. With a bright red head, he swore past the journalists. Again in “Sport” this was to be read afterwards: “Of course, the ZSC representatives received the judgment with disappointment. But it is incomprehensible how Sepp Vögeli reacted. What personal insults he sent to the address of the SEHV exponents was simply embarrassing. »
Sepp Vögeli 1985 as race director of the Tour de Suisse. Image: KEYSTONE
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An outsider was able to follow the reasoning of the NL Committee: an ordinary relegator (ZSC) is replaced by an ordinary advancer (Chur), an extraordinary relegator (Arosa) by an extraordinary advancer (Bern).
The Ice Master’s View:
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Did Berner money flow to Arosa?
The case at the time still reverberates today. It is sporadically read that everything was a scam and a scandal. The then Arosan President Peter Bossert (later Head of Technology at SEHV and even later President and refurbisher of EHC Kloten) had planned the exit of the EHC from a long hand and made common cause with the SCB in good time.
It cannot be ruled out that money has flowed from Bern up the Schanfigg. With his allegedly immense influence on Swiss ice hockey, Bossert made the members of the NL Committee compliant, so that they could not have done otherwise than opt for the Bern variant. In addition, Samuel Burkhardt, an honorary member of the SCB, was president of the committee.
Back then, Peter Bossert had to take a stand on television. picture: screenshot srf
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Whoever supports a conspiracy theory finds heaps of arguments and omits any counter-arguments. In that case, it makes sense not to mention that Burkhardt had to go out for the memorable session.
The appeal body would still have had the opportunity to overrule the NL committee’s decision. But even in the two weeks between the two meetings, Bossert worked with intangible or material persuasive power so that he finally knew the Appeals Chamber on his side. The three-person independent appeals body included, among others, Neuchâtel Denis Oswald, who later became a Swiss IOC member. (pre / sda)
