The Outsiders' Edge

(The Berlin Chronicles are back! Enjoy Peter’s entry on a bit of German hockey. Who would have thought our first hockey entry would be on the Berlin Polar Bears and not the NHL?)

Eisbären – Detroit Salutes You!

After a long pause I am back on the computer, and not a second too late because I have found inspiration in an unlikely German place.  I attended the Berliner Eisbären (Berlin Polar Bears) ice hockey game on the weekend with about as low expectations as possible.  You see, it is not that I find hockey boring or simply uninteresting, actually quite the opposite.  Being a native of Detroit, MI (aka Hockeytown in the USA), one becomes used to seeing the greatest hockey team on ice game in and game out.  I have been to plenty of hockey games before and watched countless contests on television.  Being used to talent like Steve Yzerman, Sergei Federov, Nick Lidstrom and now Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk, expectations anywhere outside of my hometown are quite low.  Not to mention after my year of living in Finland, a true hockey country, and being uninspired by their brand of native hockey after a whole season, I couldn’t imagine a soccer country like Germany having much to offer me other than a few expensive beers in an ice arena.  I could not have been more mistaken.

For starters, the arena was almost packed full to the brim.  I believe O2 Arena holds about 19,000, and it was announced that there were around 17,500 in attendance, which is good even for an NHL game (especially one in Carolina, Tampa, or Phoenix).  The away team was no special opponent or rival either, as the Augsburg Panthers are not exactly the cream of the crop in the Germany Ice Hockey League.  So I figured there had to another explanation for the big crowd.  Maybe the last home game of the season?  Maybe there was some big give-a-way?  Was Heidi Klum making a guest appearance between two of the periods?  There simply had to be an explanation why so many soccer-crazed Germans were standing up, cheering, beating on drums, shouting into megaphones, and clapping as loud as they could before the first drop of the puck.

Well game on, and I had to say that I was both a mixture of excited and confused, something just did not fit.  My girlfriend also seemed to mirror my thoughts exactly, as if “wtf?” was written on both our foreheads.  Ha, it is also important to mention that the puck dropped literally on the second the game was supposed to start.  German punctuality at its finest if you ask me.

What they lack in skill, they make up for in uniform advertisements

Only a few minutes into the game and the crowd was as loud as ever.  The cheers (barely understandable) were being lead by two men with megaphones just like a soccer game, and the fans clapped and cheered in unison almost too well.  However, all the cheers seemed to do was lead the Eisbären into two penalties, and they were 5 on 3 shorthanded for over a minute worth of time.  Augsburg took advantage, scoring quickly on the 5 on 3 powerplay and again on the ensuing one man advantage.  Each away goal was followed up with an “och nöööö” (oh no in the Berlin accent of German) on the megascreen, displayed with two animated bears with their heads in their hands.  Down two to zip, I was sure Germans may be passionate about soccer, may be passionate about cheering, but really just could not keep up the constant support for hockey.  Once again universe, you win.

They would not shut up.  They waited, maybe a minute, before they started cheering, “kämpf fort und siegen!” (fight on and win).  The Eisbären did fight on, and simply out-worked the Panthers, earning powerplays and capitalizing on both of them.  Now, I have attended many a soccer games in Germany and heard the explosion when the home team scores a goal.  It sounds / feels like a bomb going off.  Take that sound and emotion, and try to contain it in an inside arena.  It almost doesn’t work.  The entire damn place felt like it was shaking.  They all start by screaming as loud as possible, this is followed by a kids song sung in a baby-like voice, “inni mini miste, eins rabbelt in die kiste”  (the first part is like inny-miny- moe, then one rattles in the goal”).  After this, a thunderous version of the “Can Can” plays (see video) and scarves get waved, beer gets spilled, and basically a massive euphoria spreads throughout the building.  This hysteria happens literally every goal, and I do mean every goal.  The Eisbären went on to score five goals in all and held on in the third period for a 5 – 4 victory, with the proper ridiculous euphoric cheering for each Berlin goal and a sad “och nööö” for every away goal (followed 30 seconds later with more cheering).

Being a fan of one of the best hockey teams in the world for the last 20 years, and having lived in a country where hockey is king, I feel both the fans of Detroit and the citizens of Finland would likely be humbled by the two hour experience I had in that arena.   Germany has had very few hockey stars known in the world, and their national team has shown little progress in trying to compete with the big boys, but I’ll be damned if they do not have the most entertaining national league of them all.

One part of the game that simply was phenomenal was the lack of commercial breaks.  The game just flows, twenty minute periods actually last just over twenty minutes.  Sure, the sacrifice is that the players must wear advertisements on their jerseys, and there are additional ads on the ice, but I would take it this in exchange for a faster past game any day, as I imagine how frustrated many players in the NHL must become when they have good momentum going and it gets broken because Ford, Nissan, or Dodge needs to tell us about its fantastic new lease deal followed by some pharmaceutical company pushing their new drug with twelve side-effects for a stomach discomfort which they’ve made up some new clever more serious-sounds name.  The lack of commercials is phenomenal for the flow of the game and the players, if only we had a way to go back to this in the States.

Was the skill level fantastic?  Was the grit and strength of NHL players present?  Where there possible too many penalties?  Missed passes, slower shots, simple tactics, all were clearly a part of this game that one sees much less often in a higher skill or higher physical league such as the NHL or KHL, but I haven’t felt that fantastic about being at a game since the Red Wings and Avalanche used to be the biggest rivals in all the NHL.  It was almost as intense as a playoff game involving Peter Forsberg, Patrick Roy, Stevey Y, and Brendan Shanahan.  The energy, the sense that each player had to give ever grain of effort to score, the crowd hanging on the edge of their seats the entire game, and the explosion of cheers for their team not only after their goals, but trying to uplift their team when scored upon.  Any Detroit or Ave fan from that 97 – 02 era would relish this type of game, as I know did.

Maybe the goalies didn't fight in the Eisbaren game, but it would have been cool!

I want to reiterate a point here, and I hope it sticks.  Even the best players in the world, no matter the sport, do not guarantee a game / match / event to be extremely entertaining.   The fans, the culture, the flow of the game, when everything comes together just right so that your heart seems to rise and fall with your team, these are the great things that have our blood as sports fans racing and the reasons why we come back and back again.  Sports are really the one true reality TV, and we, as fans, will show up game-in and game-out to see it take place on the field, on the ice, or the court.

To the Eisbären and their fans, I have to say that you truly humbled a Detroit Red Wings fan and reminded me once again why I love every chance I get to watch a new team in action.  Eisbären, Detroit salutes you!

~ by globalcorrespondent on December 18, 2009.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: Berliner Eisbären, Detroit Red Wings, German Hockey