A great opportunity for the Fischtown Pinguins

02 Jul 2016Marco Meneghetti»

The team from Bremerhaven is the 14th competitor in next year's DEL

Wieder komplett: the Deutsche Eishockey-Liga will start its next season again with fourteen clubs. After the farewell of the Hamburg Freezers, the northern half of the country will be represented by Fischtown Pinguins, a club from the seaside city of Bremerhaven. The Pinguins were among a series of candidates for the vacant spot, but, in fact, the only ones who effectively succeded in presenting a full documentation even before the end of the 2015/16 season.

With a good financial situation, an arena which fits every DEL requirement, and two DEL2 titles won in 2002 and 2014, Bremerhaven seemed the best choice as substituting team for the Freezers: they were, indeed, also their farm-team, linked by an agreement of mutual cooperation. Even if their history is somehow still short, especially if compared to other German clubs (they were founded in 1974 as REV Bremerhaven), the Pinguins are ready to battle, and it won't be easy to let them down. The roster is mainly composed by Germans and bi-nationals (mostly U.S.- and Czech Germans), plus a couple of Canadians.

The 2061/17 DEL season will start on September 16: Bremerhaven will try to get ready for this great occasion by playing a fairly high number of preseason games, including a friendly against the Belfast Giants, a tournament in Denmark, two games against Esbjerg (Denmark) and Ritten (Italy) respectively, and another friendly against a fellow DEL team still to be announced (most likely Krefeld or Iserlohn).