"Too much is too much!", many people in Frankfurt may have thought on January 2nd, after the defeat of the Lions against Nürnberg (1-2, with goals by Martin Jiranek and Mario Chitaroni, after Jason Ruff had made the Lions take the lead in the game). Two days after, coach Peter Obresa got fired, team manager Ricki Alexander (who had made up most parts of the squad) asked for annulment of his contract at the end of the month.
    The new coach is Blair McDonald, who as a player lead the Edmonton Oilers into the Stanley Cup finals in 1981. He is already also busy with finding the last foreign player the Lions may sign with this season. There are rumours in the air about Zarley Zalapski, Marty McSorley - and even Paul Coffey!! Whoever it will be, he will have to try hard to get the team into the play offs somehow, 'cause the leeway to place eight already contains fifteen points.
    For the Hannover Scorpions, a leeway of eight points even seemed to be big enough to send their coach into the wilderness - again. Kevin Gaudet had already been fired the year before, when he became the predecessor and (later on, of course...) successor of Curt Lundström. But by the time of writing, it was not yet clear who is going to pick up Gaudet's job now.
    As I already hinted in my last article (in November), Berlin Capitals coach Michael Komma became a victim of conspiracy and lost his job. Just a few hours before the game against the Eisbären in mid-November. That shows that Roger Wittmann, the man in the background, is quite an expert in dramaturgy. But Komma was an expert in hockey! The new coach of the Caps, Chris Valentine, also is; in his first three games, the his team got seven points (3-1 against Munich, 5-6 after shoot-out against the Eisbären and 6-2 against Frankfurt) - and reached the league leadership again (which also shows that Komma's work was not bad).
    But in December, the leadership changed a few times - till around X-Mas,, the Munich Barons climbed on first place (in spite of the injuries of Chris Luongo, Heiko Smazal, Bob Sweeney, Peter Douris and Mike Kennedy). Meanwhile the have a margin of seven points to the team on the second place.
    The big surprising team of the year are the Revier Löwen Oberhausen. Having spent years on bottom of the table, they are now on their way up and already spent a few days on place two. The outstanding player in the team is Finnish goalie Sinuhe Wallinheimo, who's usually praised for his achievement twice a week - on Friday and Sunday...
    One of the most successful scorers in the team is Robert Hock. He already played for Rosenheim, Cologne, Riessersee and Heilbronn (in the 2nd Bundesliga), but is now far better than ever. Due to this fact, during a game against Kassel there was a big banner in the CentrO, saying: "Löwen fans wonder: is Zach blind or why does Hock not play for Germany?" After the match, Zach was asked by a reporter: "A word about Hock?" - "Two words", Zach answered: "Very good." Will Hock get a chance at the qualification tournament for the Olympic Games in February? Zach only knows.
    Essen's coach Jan Benda senior seemingly did not know anymore how to get along with his job. "For quite a long time now we're really going thru a bad crisis, that's why it all is not surprising to me. (...) What I saw was, that the fans constantly made the teem feel insecure by chanting against me. The I saw that there's no other way. I just had to get away from the boards, the boys finally must be left in peace again." After the game against the Eisbären (2:4), Benda resigned. Essen's new coach, Mike Zettel, is only the second coach in the history of the club. After the bankruptcy of the EHC Essen-West in 1994, Benda became coach of the new club ESC Moskitos Essen, in the beginning even working in an honorary capacity. "Essen's hockey gave me so much in my time as a player. I simply was in duty to give something back.", he once said about this.
    In the year 2000, people in Germany found out that there are also other people for which it would be better to give something back: cash!!! And it is not only the former German Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his CDU party who evaded taxes. Not quite as diligent as Mr Kohl, but with quite the same tactics, the Düsseldorfer EG worked for a few years. It would go beyond the scope of an article like this to tell every detail of the story, but it is proved that between 1990 and 1998 the DEG did not pay tax on every sold ticket, opened "black accounts" (as they are called in Germany, suitable to the colour of Mr Kohl's political party) and often gave an extra bonus to some players by that money, also without paying taxes on it. Differently from Kohl, DEG's former president Josef Klüh is remorseful now: "It all must come to light. I bear the responsibility and will settle all pay dues." He denounced himself to the police, not to be arrested.
    Now there are rumours that "70 percent of the clubs" have these so-called "black accounts", but there have no investigations on that matters been done yet.
    The Augsburger Panther, already having said goodbye to every hope to reach the play offs, is getting in financial troubles. "Yet the breaking off of the negotiations concerning the advertising on the ice rink is a hard setback causing a gap of 130000 or 140000 German marks in our budget." At the moment, there's no struggle for existence for the Panthers, but Karl-Heinz Fliegauf's forecast ain't very bright: "As a small club, we'll always have to fight big problems. In the upcoming season, we'll just have to economize even more, spending even less money on the staff." But with less money, the prospects to reach the play offs would be even worse, so they would again have to economize more etc, etc, etc... It is a vicious circle.
    In times of decreasing average attendance, the search for a solution is like the quest for the Holy Graal. But King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table are no DEL team managers. Therefore, the clubs have to help themselves. Now some managers, e.g. Düsseldorfs's Ben Zamek suggest a play down round, but not to determinbe a club to be relegated to the 2nd Bundesliga. It is a mystery to every clear-thinking fellow: partially the same persons mourning that sixty games are far too much for an interesting regular season now want even more games afterwards..... but if the fans don't attend the matches now, why should they be doing so then, when the eight worst team of the league would definitely only be playing for the "golden pineapple"?
    Another recommendation came from Munich Barons manager Max Fedra. "We simply have too much games, so a division of the league into two groups would be a useful alternative.... a division of the DEL into a Western group with Hannover, Kassel, Oberhausen, Cologne, Iserlohn, Essen, Düsseldorf and Krefeld and a Southern/Eastern group with the two Berlin clubs, Mannheim, Munich, Augsburg, Schwenningen, Nürnberg and Frankfurt." Playing four times against each time of the own group and twice against the others is Fedra's idea for a mode. For a decision like this, a two-thirds majority at the assembly of companions would be necessary.
    Meanwhile the ERC Ingolstadt (so far playing in the 2nd Bundesliga) has decided to be willing to join the DEL in the 2001-2 season. Sepp Lehner, manager of the "Ingolstadt Panther GmbH", stated on November 24th: "If we meet the sporty requirements, we want to be promoted; and provided that we reach first place, we'll apply for integration within the DEL." About buying the license of a team with financial problems he only said that it would be possible, but no negotiations with any troubled team have yet come up.

A VIEW ON THE CZECHS:

Patrik Augusta (Schwenningen): He scored more goals than anyone else in his team (16), and only the Ukrainian Vadim Slivchenko (36) has more scoring points than him (31).
Pavel Cagas (Hannover): Not too good, not too bad, but the number one goalie of his team.
Peter Gulda (Oberhausen): He plays in the second line, he has the second-most scoring points of all Revier Loewen defenders, and he is wearing the jersey with #2.
Karel Lang (Krefeld): played only 17 games yet, but his goal against average (2.54) is better that the one of his teammate Roger Nordström - and the ninth-best in the whole DEL league!
Tomas Martinec (Iserlohn): plays in the first line, together with Leonids Tambijevs and Alexander Kuzminski - and he's the best thede three. And the youngest!
Roman Meluzin (Essen): "I did not play here the way I can. Ice-hockey in Germany is not to my liking." His contract got annulled on January 8th.
Jan Nemecek (Nürnberg): His way of playing is not very conspicious, but makes him be one of the best in his team, together with goalie Paris Duffus and the Belarussian forward Dmitri Dudik.
Martin Sychra (Essen): could not play for a long time, due to an injury at his hand, but now he's fine again.
Radek Toth (Iserlohn): still does not play very often, for Duane Derksen does his job very well.
Jiri Veber (Schwenningen): not outstanding, but reliable.
Josef Zajic (Oberhausen): 27 points in 37 games - and he assisted an important goal against his ex-club Essen! (In the minds of the Revier Löwen fans, goals against Essen count twice.)

Martin Schwietzke