Kölner Haie lose coach, fans and 2 derbys

12 Oct 2014 | Markus Nisius

The city of Köln is known both for being a hockey town and a media city, a combination that sometimes does not come to the advantage of the involved people. One of these stories unfolded on Friday morning.

Friday morning. The world of most Kölner Haie fans is still ok. Sure, there have been a couple of defeats in the first games (6 losses in 8 DEL games), but the confidence in the team, that also played well in the CHL despite some tough injuries, is still present. And as the weekend offers two derbys against Krefeld and Düsseldorf everybody is looking forward to make up for the bad start.

In the course of the morning news starts spreading that the Sharks’ management has allegedly fired head coach Uwe Krupp. At this point most fans reading this at home or at their work places are still in denial and checking their calendars if it is April 1^st. But it isn’t. So it’s got to be a bad joke spread by the yellow press.

But the reality hits the fans. The management of the Kölner Haie confirms the change of its whole coaching staff around 10.30am on the Sharks’ homepage. Uwe Krupp is not just a fan favourite in Köln, he will later on be called the “face of the DEL” by Krefeld’s coach Rick Adduono. The CEO Peter Schönberger says the dismissal was the answer to a development observed over a longer time. Krupp indeed failed to win the championship twice in the past seasons, losing the DEL finals to Berlin in 2013 and Ingolstadt in 2014. And this is the problem. In Köln championships seem to be the only thing that counts. At least for managements and media, because the fans answered in their own way all day long on Friday.

The Facebook page of the Sharks had to accumulate 1304 posts under the official statement regarding this decision. And – quite rare in the internet world nowadays – they all had the same to say: Nobody could understand the decision as Uwe Krupp never really hit a rough spot on his road in the last years, be it as coach of the German national team, which he led into the Semi-Finals of the World Championships, or as the Kölner Haie coach, which he took over financially broke and out of the Play-Offs and led them as already mentioned into the Finals twice (last year just 25 minutes away from the title). A lot of fans wanted to hand in their season tickets and condemned the management to be ungrateful and cold hearted.

However you want to think about the reasons and whether they were justified or not, the decision at this given point drove a wedge into the relationship between management and fans. The news that Niklas Sundblad, who won the championship last year against Köln, is the new coach did not help the cause as it left a bitter aftertaste. The decision must have been made some time ago.

Friday evening. The game against Krefeld Penguins is starting and during the team presentation the fans chant Uwe Krupp’s name. The day did not leave a lot of room to think about hockey. And it seems to have affected the team as well. Krefeld shuts out Köln and wins 1-0 by a late second period goal through Adam Courchaine.

A loss in the “small Rhine Derby” can still be made up for in the “big Rhine Derby”, which happened to be today. And this game has the next shock for the fans handy: 126 seconds have been played when Anders Martinsen converts a Powerplay for Düsseldorf. But Köln fights back: Evan Rankin with the equalizer 14 minutes later. The game now proves to be a nail biter that goes back and forth. Another early period PowerPlay goal by Tim Conboy gives Düsseldorf the edge again. The Sharks need more time to strike back now. But they do eventually. 2:08 minutes into the last frame Marcel Ohmann is there for the next equalizer. Hope raises that this weekend might have a little happy end. And hope gets shot down 4 minutes later by Nicki Mondt and Travis Turnbull, who give DEG the 4-2 lead. After Nick Latta manages to add the third goal for Köln, it is again Anders Martinsen on the PowerPlay, who seals the deal and makes it a completely black weekend for the Kölner Haie organisation. Philip Riefers’ last goal of the game will only correct the score a bit to 5-4, but not change anything significantly.

The bottom line of the weekend: In just three days the club managed to put itself deeper into a crisis, that it could have gotten out of instead by concentrated work. The fans have to be won back now somehow and losing important games does not help with that. The only winner might be the media market in Köln as they have a lot to write about now.