End of career | March 23, 2024
EHC Biel is eliminated in four games in the playoff quarter-finals against the ZSC Lions. An era is coming to an end in Seeland – and the great career of defender Beat Forster.
Biel’s Beat Forster and his teammates say goodbye in the fourth ice hockey playoff quarter-final game of the National League between EHC Biel and the ZSC Lions. Photos: Keystone
On the ice, Beat Forster was considered a tough dog since his debut in the then National League A in January 2001 – a 9-1 win for HC Davos against La Chaux-de-Fonds. Someone you’d rather have on your own team than as an opponent, someone who gets under your skin and hurts. More than 23 years later, the Eastern Swiss is showing his softer side.
The fourth game and thus the quarter-final series against the ZSC Lions has long been decided. The Biel interim coach sends Forster onto the ice again and again, the defender receives another ovation during the last shifts of his career, and after the game he is once again honored as the best player – and the tears flow from the “tough dog”. After 1,171 games in the top league, a great career came to an end on Friday evening.
Explore sounds in Seeland
Forster also left his mark in Seeland. In 2017 he came to Biel as a six-time Swiss champion – five with Davos, one with ZSC – and his announcement was blunt. He wants to win a championship title here too. People were not used to such brisk tones in the tranquil watch town, but a year ago the dream almost came true. Under coach Antti Törmänen, who was suffering from cancer, they only failed in game 7 against Geneva-Servette.
“It makes me a little proud that I was able to make a difference in Biel,” said Forster, touched in an interview with “Mysports”. “I’m pleased that I was able to help set the course in a different direction.”
In the last few weeks, however, the end of his career threatened to come undesirably early. Now “Fösche” is satisfied. “It’s also nice that I was able to play in the playoffs again,” he emphasized. That was in jeopardy in a difficult season after flying high until the final round of qualifying.
Three rounds before the end, after a long wait and a lot of patience, the hapless coach Petri Matikainen was replaced by sports director Martin Steinegger and in extremis they made it into the play-in and there with one win and one draw each against Servette and Ambri-Piotta in the playoffs -Quarterfinals.
Played beyond your own means
There were a few reasons for Biel’s crash. On the one hand, the demands had perhaps become too great. In last year’s playoffs, they probably played above their own abilities – emotionally pumped up by the fate of the extremely popular Törmänen. For the new coach, who also wanted to implement much stricter tactics than the free spirit Törmänen, the starting situation was extremely delicate and in the end almost a “mission impossible”.
Biel’s Beat Forster fights back tears in the fourth ice hockey playoff quarterfinal game.
In addition, the additional burden of the Champions League, where, among other things, they reached the round of 16 with a win against defending champions Tappara Tampere, posed a problem that was exacerbated by a large number of injured players. So they couldn’t live up to the increased expectations, even if they still saved the season from a complete fiasco in the end.
Upheaval and question marks
But now we are facing a change, and not just because of the resignation of the leader Forster. With the second goalie Joren van Pottelberghe (to Lugano), the defense strategist Yannick Rathgeb (to Fribourg) and the strikers Tino Kessler (back to Davos), Mike Künzle (to Zug) and Luca Hischier (to Servette), you lose several Top performers who are hardly adequately replaced. It is therefore becoming apparent that we will have to take smaller steps in the near future and that last season was the last and best chance for the first championship title since 1983, at least for some time.
It’s a hard farewell to the ice for Beat Forster (right).
In addition, the open question remains about the coach in the coming season. Basically, Steinegger is looking for a successor for himself, but what does the long-time national defender plan? After successful years as a sports director, did he perhaps enjoy the emotional steel bathing of the gang? Or can he and the club management even imagine a dual role – like Christian Dubé at Fribourg-Gottéron in the last five years?
Many questions are currently unanswered in Biel. There is no question that Beat Forster will be missed by Swiss ice hockey fans. At least he knows what his future will look like: in the coaching staff of EHC Biel. What he doesn’t know yet: who his boss will be.