It became clear last Friday evening in the 51st minute at the latest that what was happening on the ice was not to the liking of the curve. “We want to see you fight” echoed from the north curve of the new SAP Gardens in Munich towards the players of EHC Red Bull Munich.
They still lost their home game against the bottom of the table in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL), Düsseldorfer EG, who had scored two points in the previous seven games, 1-2 after a penalty shootout. The Munich team had already been significantly inferior to the Rhinelanders in the five-minute extra time and had only saved themselves in the penalty shootout thanks to several saves by national goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger.
The EHC has just entered a new era, and this has been emphasized again and again by various EHC actors in the past few weeks. At the end of September, the inauguration of the SAP Garden took place with great fanfare against the Buffalo Sabres, but the opening magic quickly disappeared. The third defeat in a row – all in the new home – has now been fatal for coach Toni Söderholm, 46. On Saturday afternoon, the club announced that the former national coach had been released with immediate effect.
Manager Christian Winkler spoke of “one of the hardest decisions ever”, but in the preparation and the season so far “we did not notice the changes that, in our opinion, were necessary after last season”. The EHC ended the previous season with Söderholm, who followed in the great footsteps of DEL record coach Don Jackson, in a disappointing fifth place in the main round, followed by a clear semi-final elimination against the Fischtown Pinguins from Bremerhaven. The Munich team will also be guests this Sunday (2 p.m.). The previous assistant coach Max Kaltenhauser, 42, will be behind the board on an interim basis, assisted by Pierre Allard and Patrick Dallaire.
SAP Garden
:Departure into a new time
After more than four years of construction, the Munich SAP Garden is finished, where the EHC and FC Bayern Basketball will find their home in the future. The NHL club Buffalo Sabers is coming to the opening – with a former Munich player.
Söderholm also didn’t save the fact that his EHC had won all of the first four DEL games and was the sole leader of the table at the time. Problems of various natures cropped up again and again: While there was a lack of balance between offense and defense in some games, which led to spectacular results (7:5, 7:4, 4:6), it was the offense that weakened in the end. “Due to the situations on the boards, we didn’t get to the goal as we would have liked,” said Söderholm after the defeat against the bottom of the table on Friday.
Kaltenhauser is a workhorse and “ice hockey nerd in a positive sense”
The pressure on the Finn was already noticeable after the preparation, in which six out of seven games were lost – even on himself. “Of course there is pressure,” said Söderholm in an interview with the SZ shortly before the start of the season in mid-September he doesn’t have to read a newspaper. He is one of those “who have to deliver”. When asked how he deals with this, Söderholm said there are different ways to do it. He talks about it with people at his side, including a mental trainer. He complained that the sounding board for people who have “incredibly important opinions” had become larger through social media. In some cases you have to protect yourself from this, he emphasized. If you dealt with it every day, you would quickly get gray hair. In this sense, this business, in which often those “people who know something don’t say anything, but those who say something don’t know anything,” as he called it, is “healthy and unhealthy.”
Interim coach Max Kaltenhauser is one of the whiz kids in German ice hockey. Last season he completely unexpectedly led the Eisbären Regensburg to the second division championship title, then he moved to Munich. For Regensburg’s managing director Christian Sommerer, Kaltenhauser is a workhorse and “ice hockey nerd in a positive sense” who can “moderate things incredibly well” in the locker room. Sometimes, says Sommerer, you “almost have to slow him down to protect him from himself.” Now Kaltenhauser should, at least for now, bring momentum back to the EHC store. The players from what Winkler believes to be a “top team” are now also responsible.
