What sense does international matches make under conditions like this weekend? For coach Patrick Fischer they are more of a mortgage. They question his contract negotiations.
The players of the Swiss national ice hockey team have nothing to laugh about at the moment.
Pontus Lundahl / AP
The brand-black streak of the Swiss national ice hockey team continued in the last few days at the four-country tournament in Sweden. With Sunday’s 3-5 defeat against a Czech selection, coach Patrick Fischer’s team has been without a win for eleven games. The last success was on May 21, 2023, a 4-2 win against the Czech Republic at the World Cup tournament; The goal scorers were Andres Ambühl (2), Tanner Richard and Romain Loeffel. None of them were in Sweden.
Axel Simic and Marc Marchon scored the Swiss goals on Sunday. The two Kloteners will hardly be seen at the World Cup in Prague and Ostrava in the spring. They are two of the 54 players that Fischer has called up for the nine test games of the current season. The ten NHL professionals that Switzerland has and around which the World Cup team is being built are not yet available.
There is correspondingly little interest in the work of Fischer and his team in the current phase. The print media largely ignored the event. After all: Swiss television broadcast all games live. The SRG supports the national team primarily for political reasons. She has lost all rights to the national championship. Instead, she focuses on the national team, the Spengler Cup and the Champions Hockey League. What this has to do with the SRG’s public mission may still have to be explained to politicians when the halving initiative comes to the vote.
It seems as if Fischer is still living off the fact that he was involved in winning World Championship silver in 2013 and 2018
The lack of media interest is both a blessing and a blessing for the Swiss Ice Hockey Association. His coach Fischer’s disappointment was written all over his face in a TV interview on Sunday. It was frustrating, he said. The turnaround from 3:2 to 3:4 in the final third came about through two deflections into their own goal. At 3:5 the Swiss case was deserted. “We always find a way to lose.”
With the current record, any other coach would be under the greatest pressure to justify themselves. Despite the results, Swiss Ice Hockey is sticking firmly to Zuger. In December, the association aggressively announced that it wanted to extend Fischer’s contract until after the 2026 home World Cup. This approach caused people to shake their heads across the board. It seems as if Fischer is still living off the fact that he was involved in winning World Championship silver in 2013 and 2018.
The national coach Patrick Fischer is coming under increasing pressure.
David W Cerny / Reuters
The question is why international matches are played in the middle of the season despite their low importance. Not all club representatives express themselves as calmly and cautiously as Reto Kläy, the sports director of EV Zug, who says: “The games are a burden in the dense program. But especially when a player has been out for a longer period of time, like Sven Senteler, they can offer a welcome opportunity to play at a good level.
Kläy is a member of the National Team Committee, which oversees the national team program for the league. He may speak differently in familiar circles. Two of his players, Grégory Hofmann and Attilio Biasca, have now returned from Sweden injured shortly before the start of the play-offs. Kläy said on Sunday that you can also get injured in the club.
But the players’ commitments would be stronger and public interest would be higher if the games were about something sporting. Patrick Bloch, the CEO of Swiss Ice Hockey, says he is not interested in the discussion because it is unlikely to happen. Marketing the national team program is no easy task. Rumors are circulating in the scene that the association would be missing around two million francs. Bloch rejects this figure. “If that were the case, it wouldn’t be good.”
In 2013, the Swiss won World Cup silver in Stockholm, but this time they were not nearly as successful.
The sum may have its origins in the lack of a main sponsor. In spring 2022, Zurich Insurance ended its involvement. The group was not only a partner for the national team, but also for the referees, in the cup and in youth programs. Bloch has not found a similar partner since then.
Basically, the mood towards the national team is positive, he says. “The upcoming home World Cup in Zurich and Freiburg will help us.” But Bloch also knows: “The economic climate has changed due to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and inflation. Many companies have become more cautious. Our product does generate interest. But we also want to offer something. Simply having a logo on the senior national team’s uniform is no longer enough. Topics such as a partner’s corporate philosophy or equality have greater weight today.”
There was a hail of cancellations – which opened the door for international newcomers
The contract with the Euro Hockey Tour, which included the most recent tournament in Sweden, runs until 2027. After the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Switzerland took over the Russians’ place in the field of participants; The opponents are Sweden, the Czech Republic and Finland. The contract states that participants must compete with the “best possible teams” and be competitive.
In Sweden, this requirement was not met by the Swiss, for example the professionals from the champions and Champions League finalists Geneva/Servette were missing. In December, the HC Davos players usually get a break because of the Spengler Cup. The coaches no longer have to see a man like the 40-year-old record national player Andres Ambühl on a regular basis.
Bloch says that it is part of the agreement with the clubs that the national team will forego some of the players at the February meeting and rely on younger players. Fischer received ten more cancellations for the tournament in Sweden. That opened the door for six international newcomers, which was obvious on the ice.