ZAGREB – Which is the hockey club of the year in Europe? It may very well be Medvescak Zagreb of Croatia. It plays in the Austrian league and averages almost 6,000 fans per game.
Adding a new team that succeeds is the dream of any league. May it be by means of expansion, by relocating a franchise or by the classic promotion/relegation system many leagues in Europe still use.
It doesn’t always work, that a hockey oasis blossoms in the desert. We all know the fate of some franchises in the NHL. The formula big “market”, big team does not necessarily succeed.
Sometimes it does. Kometa Brno from the second-biggest Czech city joined the Extraliga in 2009 and immediately attracted good attendance.
In Sweden for instance, the Elitserien is played without teams from the third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-biggest cities, Malmö, Uppsala, Västerås and Örebro, but paradoxically it is still the league with the highest average attendance behind the NHL, slightly ahead of Switzerland.
And also the Swiss league does well with small-town teams. The clubs from Basel and Lausanne, the third- and fifth-most populated cities, had to leave the National League A as they didn’t succeed, neither on the ice nor economically. The team from Winterthur, the eighth-biggest city, just won the third-tier league and declined the promotion, feeling that the club cannot succeed in professional hockey. Lucerne (6th) and St. Gallen (7th) even play one level below.
Some years ago, the American Anschutz Entertainment Group bought the licence of German small-town club Bad Tölz to create a new franchise in Munich, the third-biggest city of the country. The Munich Barons won a championship, but nobody noticed it. The owner relocated the team to Hamburg, which ranks second in population, where the Freezers have no success, but at least considerable attendance figures.
One of the most remarkable stories of club relocation or expansion, if you will, doesn’t come from one of the top hockey nations, but from the country ranked 27th in the IIHF World Ranking: Croatia.
When Innsbruck announced they would leave the Austrian “Erste Bank Eishockey Liga” (EBEL) one year ago, Croatia’s record champion Medvescak Zagreb was offered to join the ten-club league as the fourth foreign team after Acroni Jesenice, Olimpija Ljubljana (both Slovenia) and Fehervar (Hungary).
The EBEL clubs were sceptical about the addition. Few believed that a club that averaged 500 fans in the Croatian and Slovenian leagues and that comes from a country whose national team alternated between the second and third international tier could be a viable addition.. And they were also afraid of problems with fan violence which Croatia knows from other team sports.
But so far, the addition of the Zagreb club has been a sensational success.
Since replacing struggling Austrian small-town clubs by teams from the neighbouring countries, the total number of spectators of the league has increased from 302,830 in 2001 to 907,740 in 2009 and it may pass the million mark this year. One of the reasons is Medvescak Zagreb, the team from Croatia’s capital.
Zagreb’s hockey struggle after Yugoslavia’s split-up
Zagreb is not a “hockey desert” as the city has ice sport tradition. Before the split-up of Yugoslavia, Zagreb was the most important hockey city East of Slovenia. Medvescak won three consecutive Yugoslavian titles 1989-1991. Two other teams brought the trophy to Zagreb in 1947, 1949 and 1956.
The club was founded in 1961 in the district of Medvescak that gave the club its name and where the historic Satala outdoor rink is located. After becoming the last champion in Yugoslavian hockey history, the club has won 14 Croatian championships.
But the popularity of hockey declined after the independence. The best players left and the championship was virtually an internal Zagreb city affair as the biggest rivals from Belgrade, Jesenice and Ljubljana were missing after the devastating split-up of Yugoslavia.
However, times have changed in the Balkan and the regions are rebounding at an encouraging pace. Slovenia, for example, has joined the European Union. Croatia is a candidate country for the next EU expansion and trade between former Yugoslavian regions has increased significantly.
The hockey federations and clubs are trying to solve the lack of competition by working closer together, too, and making each other stronger. In 2007, Medvescak Zagreb joined the Slovenian league that also includes other Croatian and Serbian teams. Those three countries are also part in the IIHF World Championship program.
Back to pro after 20 years
When Medvescak, after a long absence, moved back to the biggest hall of the sport complex Dom Sportova for the playoffs in Slovenia last year, some 3,500 spectators watched the playoffs.
For the club and its owners (four former Croatian national team players) it was the sign that hockey is not dead and that they were working in the right direction. And it also opened the opportunity to join the best two Slovenian teams Acroni Jesenice and Olimpija Ljubljana in the Austrian league as the next step, although Medvescak hadn’t played at that level of professionalism for almost 20 years.
But the Medvescak management convinced the Austrians about accepting an expansion from Croatia and when the season began in September, dozens of billboards were displayed around Zagreb with the simple and clear message “Ice Hockey is Back”.
Finding sponsors was not easy for the ambitious project, but after the first games were sold out, the “Bears” won the heart of fans and companies in Zagreb, in Croatia and from Croatian expats abroad.
The attendance figures from the first season in Austria are unmistakable. Medvescak Zagreb filled the 6,200-capacity arena several times and had an average attendance of 5,843 spectators – with an excellent atmosphere. That made the Zagreb team the best-attended club of the league. In the IIHF’s annual European Attendance Ranking, Medvescak Zagreb came out of the dark to 35th place, ranked before teams like Kärpät Oulu, Slavia Prague, Luleå, Düsseldorf or Davos.
High attendance even surprised the club
After 20 years in anonymity, Medvescak has outnumbered basketball and handball teams, which have drawn by far more interest than hockey in the post-Yugoslav era, until 2009.
Because the atmosphere at the Dom Sportova rink is sizzling and peaceful at the same time, Medvescak Zagreb is also popular among families and their home games belong to the few top events where beer with alcohol can be sold because the authorities don’t see any reason to rate Medvescak’s games as high-risk events.
“No one in the club has expected such a response from the audience during the entire season, but thanks to our efforts in marketing, communications and the honest relationship between the audience and players, the success was bound to happen,” said the club’s spokesman Toni Dabinovic.
“The organization of the games demands a large number of volunteers, security and supporting personnel. There are many activities going on before, during and after each match on and outside the ice rink. From the very beginning we have established a high level of organizational standards and have involved many people, which made us prepared even for such a large number of spectators.”
Although the club offers low ticket prices and has one of the smallest budgets of the league, €1.5 million, the club was not only a box-office success, but also a nice surprise on the ice.
After the 54-game regular season, Medvescak reached eighth place in the ten-team league, outranking both of their Slovenian rivals. But the big surprise came in the best-of-seven quarterfinals when Medvescak Zagreb defeated regular season winner Graz 99ers in six games. In the semi-finals, there was no David vs. Goliath déjà vu as Zagreb lost to Red Bull Salzburg in five games.
Such a performance could of course not have happened with the team that won the Croatian championship the season before. One of the first off-season signings last year was Slovenian national team goalkeeper Robert Kristan while the top scoring players were also signed from abroad.
Medvescak Zagreb has nine players on the roster that have both a Croatian passport and the citizenship of another country they were born: Canada, the United Stats, Slovakia and Slovenia. The North America-born players John Hecimovic, Andy Sertich, Mike Prpich and Joel Prpic have all Croatian roots. Prpic played 18 NHL games for Boston and Colorado while the others played in the AHL or ECHL before transferring to Europe.
“We didn’t have enough good domestic players for such a professional and strong league. Therefore, we have opted for international reinforcement and most of the players that came are of Croatian origin,” Dabinovic said. “Only a few of them speak Croatian but many are trying very hard to learn as many words as possible. The fans have accepted them from the very beginning because of their honest and wholehearted attitude.”
Hope and sceptic for national team
The 2009-2010 season changed much in Croatian hockey. And it could have a big impact on the national team, too. The double-citizens could become eligible to represent Croatia in one year. According to the IIHF’s eligibility rule, double-citizens have to play for at least two consecutive years for a club of the country they want to represent (four years if they have previously represented another country in IIHF competition).
However, for now the national team will remain as it is and coach Pavle Kavcic is sceptical regarding his team’s chances in the 2010 IIHF World Championship Division I Group B in Ljubljana despite Medvescak Zagreb reaching another club level.
Or, maybe, because of that.
“The national team players from Medvescak didn’t get a lot of chances to play during this season. This is our biggest problem,” Kavcic said. “Due to so many foreign players on the club, most of the Croatian players spent the whole season on the bench instead of on the ice. Our chances to achieve good results will probably be much better next year. This is why this year our goal is to stay in the Division I. The most important opponent for us is Korea. This match will decide which team will stay in the group.”
In the April 17-23 tournament, where much travelling fan support from Croatia is expected, the Croats will face host country Slovenia, Hungary, Great Britain, Poland and Korea. One year ago, Croatia finished fifth out of six nations after defeating Australia in the deciding game to avoid relegation.
For now, both Medvescak and the Croatian national team depend on players that were developed in other countries to fulfil higher ambitions, a situation that will hopefully change for the better after Medvescak’s sensational rise this year.
“The fact that we have entered the EBEL has woken up the Croatian audience from a long sleep,” Kavcic said. “We could also see it in the extraordinary interest for our ice hockey school, which is an excellent indicator that in a couple of years Croatian ice hockey will come to a new European level.”
MARTIN MERK
