The Mannheim Eagles are the record holders of the DEL and one of the most popular teams in Germany: over 10,000 spectators regularly flock to cheer on their team at the modern SAP arena. However, so far, the German team has not qualified for the finale in four tries at the Spengler Cup.
The Mannheim Eagles dominated the German Ice Hockey league at will at the end of the 1990s. Five Championship titles resulted from the most successful time in the team's history and yet another title came in 2007. However, the German team from Baden has not managed to find such success in its four Spengler Cup participations. They lost all four games in their first appearance in 1991. Their 1997 and 2007 appearances found the Eagles cutting a much better figure and in each case only just missing appearances in the finals through a stroke of bad luck. In both cases they finished third but on equal points as the second place team in the tournament. While in 2001, they could only manage one victory in the tournament against Sparta Prague. The Eagles will have a new chance this year. In spite of its league success, Mannheim remains humble. "A place among the first three would be a great success," Sports Director Marcus Kuhl said, in view of the strong competition they will face. The tournament has a high value for the Eagles. Already during the World Championships in Switzerland the team had agreed with tournament head Fredy Pargätzi to take part. Early agreement was necessary so that their DEL games during the Spengler Cup tournament week could be rescheduled.
Fred Brathwaite: the Public's Favourite
Some well known faces will return with the Eagles to Davos : The two new Mannheim signings Yannick Seidenberg and Mario Scalzo participated in the Spengler Cup last year with Ingolstadt and Team Canada, respectively. Likewise, the coach Doug Mason was with the team EV Zug in the 2001/02 season, Justin Papineau was the best scorer for the EHC Basel in the 2007/08 season and defender Pascal Trepanier was once active in the NLB near Biel. Undeniably the star of the team and public favourite is Fred Brathwaite. The 37 year old goal keeper has already played 255 games in the NHL and subsequently played three more years in the Russian League. With Ak Bars Kasan he won the 2006 Russian National title. Eleven years ago he cut a good figure in front of the Canadian goal and was instrumental in their tournament victory.
Mannheim has immensely beefed up its offence over the summer break. Securing the services of Nathan Robinson und Scott King has guaranteed Mannheim will field two of the most successful scorers in the DEL. Robinson already has won the German championships with the Eagles in 2007 and showed to have made a savvy choice when he changed his affiliation to the Berlin Ice Bears. He went on to help the team from Berlin win two more championship titles in 2008 and 2009. His return to Mannheim awakens the hope in the fans' hearts that the team will find more success since apart from the championship in 2007, the Eagles have failed to rekindle the type of playing which made the team such a dominant force in the late 1990s. They have most often stalled in the middle section of the League tables. However, for their current season, the Eagles have the appropriately lofty ambition to finish among the top three teams of the regular season and to qualify for the finals once they enter the playoffs.
Europe-wide fan base
The history of the Mannheim Eagles is rich with peculiar incidents. Founded in 1938 as the Mannheim Ice and Roller Skating club, they succeeded in reaching the German championship final as early as 1942. This, however, was only made possible because their semi-final opponent was kept from competing due to the war. But it was the war that also kept them from winning a potential championship title: Propaganda Minister Goebbels had declared “total war” and as a result the finals were called off.
With their game in the quarter final playoff against the Cologne Sharks on March 22 , 2008 the Eagles set the European wide record for the longest ever ice hockey game. A change in the German Ice Hockey rules made possible this extremely long game by dictating that the game must be extended until the winning Golden Goal had been scored. In the case of the game between the Eagles and the Sharks, this happened only after 168 minutes and 16 seconds of playing. The Sharks came away with the 5:4 win.
Twice in its history, Mannheim has come close to folding as a club. At the beginning of the 1990s, the Mannheim ERC as it was then known, had had only moderate success in the German Federal Hockey league and consequently accumulated a mountain of debt. By the spring of 1994, it had grown to 8 million Marks. Only by selling off expensive assets like star players and drastically cutting salaries could the team be saved. Then the following season, the club, under the new name of the Mannheim Eagles, took part in the newly created German Hockey League, the DEL.
It created quite a buzz and went on to win four Championship titles in four years. After the final victory in 2001, however, the original Mannheim ERC organization had to be liquidated as a result of insolvency. But team operations and games continued thanks to the intervention of patron Dietmar Hopp, one of the founders of German software giant SAP. Mr. Hopp was also considerably involved with the construction of the new SAP Arena which was opened in 2004. The new Ice Hockey Stadium incited a great deal of enthusiasm in Mannheim with on average 11,756 spectators coming to see the Eagles each game, the third largest regular fan attendance in Europe.
