After EHC Biel’s 4-2 win in Ambri, the season continues for the Seeländer against the ZSC Lions. Beat Forster’s career is thus being extended.
For Beat Forster (number 29) and his EHC Biel, the season continues after the win in Ambri on Saturday against the ZSC Lions.
Alessandro Crinari / Keystone / TI-Press
The field of participants for this year’s play-offs is complete. EHC Biel was the last team to qualify for the quarter-finals on Wednesday evening. There, last year’s finalists will meet the qualification winners ZSC Lions from next Saturday.
The Biel team earned last place among the eight teams playing for the title thanks to a 4-2 win in the play-in second leg in Ambri. Mike Künzle decided the game with 43 seconds left with a goal into the empty goal.
After the 1-1 draw in Biel on Monday, Ambris was expected to storm the Leventina. But coach Luca Cereda’s team disappointed their loyal supporters and probably themselves too. Instead of Ambri, the Biel team stormed for long stretches of the game. They laid the foundation for a deserved victory with an early 2-0 lead in the first half of the starting third. Tino Kessler and Elvis Schläpfer scored within 41 seconds. For the son of former Biel coach Kevin Schläpfer, it was the first goal of the current season for Biel on the day of his 23rd birthday. He was temporarily loaned out to HC Martigny in the Swiss League.
Successful change of coach in Biel
Just a few weeks ago it looked like anything but Biel’s play-off participation. But with the change of coach from Petri Matikainen to Martin Steinegger a good two weeks ago, life returned to the Biel team. The sports director stepped in as an emergency helper on the boards for the third time. Once again he showed his skills as a firefighter.
With the Biel victory it is also clear that Beat Forster’s career will continue. The 41-year-old from Appenzeller will step down at the end of the season and become an assistant coach at the club. This winter he will play his 24th season in the National League. On Wednesday evening he completed his 1,167th match and drew level with ZSC legend Mathias Seger. Only his long-time Davos teammate Andres Ambühl and SCB defender Beat Gerber are ahead of him.
Forster became champion six times with HC Davos and the ZSC Lions. When he moved from Graubünden to Biel in the summer of 2017, he said he came to Seeland to celebrate another championship title here. The CEO Daniel Villard then reprimanded him and let him know that they were here in Biel and were acting modestly. A year ago he reached the seventh final game with the EHCB against Geneva/Servette.
Forster can still hope to make up for this season what he and his team narrowly missed a year ago. But the tasks are now becoming increasingly difficult. On Saturday, the Biel team will start the quarter-final series against the ZSC Lions away from home in Zurich’s Swiss Life Arena. A year ago the two teams faced each other in the semi-finals. The Biel team immediately won 4-0. This time the starting position is different: the ZSC Lions showed a convincing performance in the qualification. They have a balanced squad with no apparent weaknesses. And they were recently allowed to rest for almost two weeks and prepare for the start of the decisive championship phase.
EHC Biel is the blatant outsider in this series. But the Zealanders have recovered surprisingly well from a largely unsuccessful season. The change of coach from Antti Törmänen to Petri Matikainen was a complete failure. The Finn never came close to making his popular compatriot forget him. There was also an almost record-breaking wave of injuries. The team is facing a significant upheaval. But who knows, maybe the people of Biel can pull together to make another effort. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve stunned the entire league.
What’s next in Ambri with Luca Cereda?
HC Ambri-Piotta, on the other hand, definitely has to take a summer break. The club and its supporters will do this with mixed feelings. The start to the play-ins eight days ago against HC Lugano was promising. Ambri led 4-0 after just 25 minutes, but then gave up the match. Since then, the team has made a jaded, unconvincing impression. Even in the last match on Wednesday, the Leventiners appeared surprisingly lethargic for long stretches. When they finally pulled themselves together again in the final phase, it was already too late.
The loyal supporters celebrated their team for minutes after the match. But in the Leventina the topic of what should happen next with coach Luca Cereda will probably come up again in the coming weeks. The offspring of our own offspring has been with the gang since 2017. But he only reached the play-offs once (2019) during this time. Even for a small club like Ambri-Piotta, this is a disappointing result and will be a source of discussion in the canton of Ticino.