Committed: Tigers coach Thierry Paterlini.Image: keystone
Ice Master Zaugg
The SCL Tigers have extended their coach Thierry Paterlini’s contract early by two years. SC Bern has extended their coach Jussi Tapola’s contract early by one year. What is nonsense at SCB makes a lot of sense at Langnau.
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“Qui bono?” is the crucial question in all stories. This question (in German: “To whose advantage?”) goes back to the Roman orator and polemicist Marcus Tullius Cicero.
So when we look at the two early contract extensions in the Bern area, the question arises: Who benefits? At the SCB it is clear: Head of Sport Martin Plüss and Assistant Head of Sport Patrik Bärtschi are hoping for the benefit of inner and outer peace.
The question of the coach is a very sensitive one in Bern. For more than ten years, all SCB coaches have failed more or less inglorious. Even the championship coaches. Larry Huras was fired, Antti Törmänen was dismissed, Lars Leuenberger was no longer wanted, Kari Jalonen was sent home early. In addition, operetta coaches such as Don Nachbaur, Johan Lundskog and Toni Söderholm have failed miserably.
According to the paper, Jussi Tapola will stay in Bern for a longer period.Image: keystone
It is understandable, then, that the SCB’s senior and junior sports directors do not want to discuss the coach now. They naively assume that the early extension for another season until 2026 will silence all discussions about the coach. However, there is no real strategy behind Jussi Tapola’s extension – based on the questions “Who are we in terms of sport?”, “What do we want in terms of sport?” and “Who is the ideal leader to implement what we are and want?”. The only SCB sporting strategy that has been identified so far is that of the open safe: buying players. In addition, Jussi Tapola has no market in Switzerland and he cannot get a better-paid job anywhere in Europe than in Bern.
For Thierry Paterlini, the situation is completely different. Since the summer of 2022, he and sporting director Pascal Müller have been on a mission: together, consistently and successfully, they are implementing the vision of a training club step by step, i.e. a club that enables young players to get better so that they can later become rich somewhere else.
Over the last two years, Paterlini has become one of the most sought-after Swiss coaches in his first job in professional hockey: While many wonder whether Luca Cereda could make it anywhere other than Ambri and with a sports director other than Paolo Duca, whether a club other than Lugano would dare to try the Luca Gianinazzi experiment, Zurich-born Thierry Paterlini is, so to speak, a man for all clubs and all places. Sports director Müller had to reckon with the fact that Paterlini would have been poached by the competition after his contract expired in the summer of 2025.
Pascal Müller is building something in Langnau as head of sport.Image: keystone
The SCL Tigers have a clear sporting strategy, which they are also implementing in terms of infrastructure with the new, recently opened competitive sports center (“Campus”). Sports director Pascal Müller and Thierry Paterlini are the architects of this strategy and, unlike in Bern, there is no murmuring in the dressing room. So it makes sense to extend the contract early and for two years with the coach and architect of their own strategy.
To return to the question posed at the beginning (“Who benefits?”): The early contract extension in Bern benefits the head and junior sports directors and the coach. The early contract extension in Langnau benefits the club.
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7
A leader who can decide a game and make his team better on and off the ice.
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6-7
A player with so much talent that on a good night he can decide a game and is a leader.
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5-6
A good NL player: Often talented rainbow-skinned players, sometimes serious workers who make the most of their talent.
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4-5
A player for the 3rd or 4th block, a veteran or a rookie.
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3-4
The future still ahead of you or the future already behind you.
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The rating is the North American hockey grading scale, which ranges from 1 (minimum) to 7 (maximum). There are no grades below 3, because anyone who plays in the highest league is at least just about good enough.
HCD, SCB, ZSC and? These clubs have already become Swiss hockey champions
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HCD, SCB, ZSC and? These clubs have already become Swiss hockey champions
HC Davos: 31 titles, 6 since 1986; last champion: 2015.
those: keystone / ennio leanza
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