41-year-old Andres Ambühl is the league’s record player

 

Tuesday afternoon, just before twelve o’clock. The phone rings. “Hello, it’s Dr Andres.” Andres Ambühl cannot be called and he cannot be connected either. He calls himself. That is significant for him.

On September 14th, Ambühl, whom everyone just calls “Büeli,” celebrated his 41st birthday. On Thursday he played his 1,270th game in the National League in the home game against SC Bern, surpassing the record set by Bern defender Beat Gerber. In addition, there are 336 international games, 64 games for the Hartford Wolf Pack in the American Hockey League and a whole lot of other important and less important ice hockey games.

Nobody knows exactly how often Andres Ambühl has laced up his ice skates in his life, especially not himself. It’s not that important to him either. When asked what it means to him to now become a record player in the National League, he answers: “Oh, actually I haven’t really thought about it yet. But of course it’s nice to be on the same level as Mathias Seger or Beat Gerber. But I’m also happy for all the people around me who have helped my career last so long.”

What sounds like the polished answer of a well-advised professional is “Büeli unfiltered”. He is the way he speaks: simple, modest, calm. Growing up in Sertig, a side valley in the Davos countryside where there is a listed Reformed church, two restaurants and a modern middle-class hotel, he never tried to be anyone other than who he is: Dr Büeli usem Sertig.

He never really felt drawn away from the Graubünden mountain idyll. When he did go and try out the New York Rangers organization for a season, he quickly realized: North America and the NHL are not his world. The glamor and glitter of New York’s Broadway are as far removed from him as all the airs and graces that have become noticeable in professional sports in recent years.

Del Curto raves about the quiet leader

Arno Del Curto was Ambühl’s coach for almost two decades. At the age of 17, he brought him from the youth ranks into the HCD first team. Del Curto says: “We saw his potential early on. With his running skills, he fit perfectly with my idea of ​​how ice hockey should be played.” The now 68-year-old Engadine native is not surprised that Ambühl is still playing ice hockey at the highest level at the age of over 40. “His way of playing is not something he has been trained to do, but rather a natural gift that he was born with.”

Andres Ambühl became a cornerstone of the great Davos team that won six championship titles under the charismatic Engadine coach between 2002 and 2015 and set new standards in the league. Nevertheless, Ambühl was mostly overshadowed by other great players of the time, such as the von Arx brothers, Sandro Rizzi and the Czech Josef Marha. That was also due to his nature: Ambühl never pushed himself into the foreground. Del Curto says he led the team with his example on the ice and not with words in the dressing room. “He was a quiet leader who led by leading the way.”

 

Ambühl has won five of his six championship titles to date with the HCD, and the sixth with the ZSC Lions, which he joined for three years after his return from North America. He describes his time in Zurich as very educational and important for his development. “I grew into a new role there and also after my return to Davos. If I hadn’t left Davos temporarily, I would probably always have remained little Büeli, a kind of eternal ice hockey apprentice.”

Andres Ambühl has now been back in Landwassertal for eleven years. His current contract expires in the spring. At least at the moment he doesn’t know what will happen next. «It’s October, the season has just started. I feel good and comfortable and can well imagine playing for another year or two. But it doesn’t make sense to plan too far in advance. So much can happen in ice hockey.”

It’s almost impossible to imagine HC Davos without Ambühl. The club is marked by the ugly end of the Von Arx brothers’ careers. Del Curto wanted to convert center Reto into a defender and no longer give his younger brother Jan a contract. This broke up a long-standing male friendship – and temporarily also the good relationship between the players and the club. Initially, the two of them didn’t even want to show themselves in the stadium when they were honored and their jersey numbers were retired.

Andres Ambühl cannot imagine leaving Davos and his homeland a second time and joining a new club. “I grew up here and feel at home here.” He is now the father of two girls aged four and two and a half.

Ambühl is not only a record National League player and six-time champion, but also holds the record for World Cup participation, most World Cup games and most scorer points in World Cup tournaments. In the spring, Ambühl was an important piece of the puzzle for Switzerland on the way to the silver medal in Prague. Although success would have been the perfect moment to resign, Ambühl doesn’t want to know anything about it. He says: “You don’t commit to the national team, the national team calls you. As long as I’m called up, I’ll make myself available.”

Play as long as Jaromir Jagr played?

The national coach Patrick Fischer is a former teammate of Ambühl. Five years ago, when he played his 1,000th match in the league and was recognized nationwide for the first time, Fischer told the NZZ: “When I was a player, people in the dressing room usually didn’t even notice that Ambühl was there. But he was even more noticeable on the ice afterwards.”

 

Andres Ambühl is a long-term runner in Swiss ice hockey, a player who still finds energy and keeps running even when everyone around him is already on the edge of their seats. Throughout his life, Ambühl believed in the value of hard, honest work. The existence of his family, which runs a farm in the inhospitable area of ​​the Sertigtal, is based on this. His conviction culminates in the sentence: “If you want the cows to have something to eat in the winter, you have to work for it in the summer.” This statement sums up what defines him and makes him so popular throughout the league. He was repeatedly voted “most popular player” by fans at the end of the season.

Ambühl is a personality in Swiss ice hockey like the former ZSC captain Mathias Seger or Bern’s cult goalkeeper Renato Tosio. He not only enjoys the respect and recognition of his own fans, but also has many admirers and followers in the stadiums of his competitors.

And he has a prominent role model. Jaromir Jagr announced in Kladno a few weeks ago that the upcoming season would be his last. The Czech superstar is 52 years old, and yet people don’t quite believe him that he will actually and finally hang up his skates next spring.

Ambühl will continue playing. 41 years is not an age, not for Büeli, this perpetual motion machine of Swiss ice hockey.