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Legend in the crossfire in Cologne
The Kölner Haie are going into the DEL playoffs without tailwind. The frustration of many fans is focused on coach Uwe Krupp.
Krupp and his team are criticized
© IMAGO/Beautiful Sports/SID/IMAGO/BEAUTIFUL SPORTS/Andreas Dick
The always hotly contested play-offs in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) make fans’ hearts beat faster, but that’s not the case with the Kölner Haien this year.
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Instead of anticipation, frustration prevails among the Rhinelanders, faith in their own team is almost zero. Coach Uwe Krupp in particular draws the fans’ displeasure.
Cologne Sharks without tailwind in the DEL playoffs
Long before the final siren, many of the 18,600 spectators at the last main round game hastily left the sold-out Lanxess Arena in Cologne-Deutz. The KEC was already clearly behind against the Adler Mannheim, and in the end the eight-time German champions conceded a 1:6. Most of the fans who remained responded with a concert of whistles and shouts of “Krupp out!”
“It’s been the same all season,” said Justin Schütz, the top scorer in the DEL main round with 27 goals, at MagentaSport: “We play a good game in Ingolstadt, come here, concede a goal and the same thing happens again .” It was the 26th defeat for Cologne, who started the season with title ambitions and fell back to eighth place.
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Uwe Krupp has little credit among fans
Nobody in the cathedral city has been talking about the championship for a long time. Instead, the fans are discussing a possible successor to Coach Krupp. Apparently no one really believes that the first German Stanley Cup winner in the NHL and former national coach can be successful with the team anymore.
The fans even fear a quick exit in the pre-playoffs, in which the Haie meet runner-up ERC Ingolstadt.
“If it continues like this, it will be over on Wednesday,” Schütz also believes, with a view to the second and possibly decisive game against the ERC: “We have to be that honest.”
Normally Cologne would enjoy home advantage in the first and last game of the best-of-three series. Because the arena is full, the KEC will start the fight for the quarter-finals this Sunday (2 p.m.) in Ingolstadt before playing two games at home. But maybe that’s even a good omen. Cologne had won the ERC before the debacle against Mannheim.
2024-03-10 15:21:03
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