Why the DEL is failing at the international level

At the end of the live broadcast of the Fischtown Pinguins’ last Champions League appearance for the time being, the commentator on Magentasport really hit it hard again. Bremerhaven “really advertised German ice hockey”. With hardly any German players in the team, mind you, against a team from Servette Geneva in which six Finns play the main role, but no Swiss players.

That both Bremerhaven (2:2 on Tuesday at home, 0:5 two weeks earlier in Geneva) and champions Eisbären Berlin (the 3:4 against Zurich was followed by a 4:5 in Zurich on Tuesday) were eliminated by Swiss teams in the quarterfinals of the CHL , casts more of a bad light on the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) than on German ice hockey. Nor does it shed a good light on Swiss ice hockey. The duels between DEL teams and Swiss teams simply showed that the better (because better paid) foreign professionals are under contract in the National League.

From DEL’s perspective, there’s not much that can be changed so quickly, except with money. But it should make you think. Maybe it would make more sense in the DEL to spend a lot of money on four or five good foreigners instead of getting ten foreigners into the squad or being happy that an American who is approaching 40 finally has a German passport received and to sign him as a German player (like Düsseldorf EG Ryan McKiernan recently).

From the DEL’s point of view, it is of course sad that none of their representatives can challenge for the title in the tenth year. So far, only RB Munich has made it to the final once and that is actually a dismal record for the ice hockey league, which has the highest average attendance in Europe.