ZURICH – It took exactly 50 years to bring the NHL back to Zurich’s Hallenstadion. The Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers played two exhibition games in the famed Zurich arena while touring through Europe. Now, European club champions ZSC Lions will play the Chicago Blackhawks for the Victoria Cup on September 29.

The Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Canadiens were the first teams to go to Europe in 1938. The second tour of NHL teams in Europe was arranged in 1959 between the Bruins and the Rangers. In 26 days, the teams played each other in 23 exhibition games in ten cities and six countries. A retired Swiss World Championship player, Othmar Delnon, organized for the teams to come Europe including the four games in Switzerland – two each in Geneva and Zurich.

“Unique – hurry to get tickets for these extraordinary ice hockey games of the two American professional teams of the famous National Hockey League,” read the advertisement in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung six days before the first game.

Tickets for the NHL exhibition games cost up to 35 Francs. That was the value of 117 editions of the newspaper, 14 lunches – but still 60 times less than the economy-class return ticket to New York for Swissair’s daily flight. Considering inflation and rise in real wages, it comes up to a value of 300 Francs ($285) today.

NHL hockey was too expensive in Europe as attendance figures were low in some cities and the tour became a financial disaster. The 4,500 figure in Zurich was one of the better crowds, a sell-out of 11,000 saw the Bruins and Rangers play in Geneva, while only a few hundred attended the games in Antwerp or Paris.

Not everybody could afford the tickets – even not national players. At that time in Switzerland, ice hockey was a sport of amateurs and the top league was mostly played on open-air rinks, sometimes even on ponds, while the NHL pros earned an average salary of up to $30,000.

NHL players were seen as aliens in Europe. Neue Zürcher Zeitung began the story of the first game in Geneva like that: “A hugely conceived propaganda campaign draw the attention of the Swiss sport public during the last weeks on the Swiss opening of the ice hockey professional teams of the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers, consisting of Canadian players.”

The journalist wasn’t happy about the game at the beginning but after an “unmistakable demonstration by the spectators at the beginning of the last period”, the players showed another intensity and speed. “After that one could see horrendous speed, the players smashed into the boards, you could see wrestling, kneeing and the gimmick usual under professional sportsmen.”

Expectations were high compared to the Swiss league, which could be described as a beer league in those days.

The Rangers’ 4-3 win was “different hockey with tall, mostly over 80-kilo heavy players”. The journalist also saw something he hadn’t seen before: Defencemen went down on their knees to block shots. The Bruins avenged the loss with a 12-4 victory on the second day before the teams left to France and Belgium.

After five games in other countries, the teams were back in Switzerland, at Zurich’s Hallenstadion, which was rebuilt in 2005.

“American professional ice hockey in perfection,” reads the headline after the Rangers won the first game, 7-6. “One doesn’t know what should be praised more: the impact of the never ending attacks and counter-attacks, the perfection of the puck-handling or the sophisticated skating technique. The precise shots whizzed to the goal with terrific strength, so quick, that the eye can hardly follow. The acrobatic, versatile saves of the goalkeepers evoked applause permanently. They fought hard, but fair. Body checks are allowed in all zones over the field, even at the boards, and often it buzzed around the space when the armoured bodies of those musclemen bumped into each other, and players flew into or over the boards.”

The Bruins got revenge again, beating the Rangers 4-2 the next day.

Basler Nachrichten wrote: “The professional players showed hockey like we haven’t seen it before in Switzerland. At first, it’s to emphasize that every single player is a perfect skater, who can turn at lightning speed in all directions and who skated back faster than any of our ice hockey players forward.”

How much the world of hockey has changed since then. In 1975, the first-ever game between club teams from the NHL and Europe was played with CSKA Moscow stunning the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, 7-3. USSR teams held a 58W-10T-40L record against NHL teams in such meetings between 1975 and 1991. It was the time when the cross-ocean borders began to fall and the rift of talent between NHL professionals and Europeans shrank.

Today, several Swiss are trying their luck at the NHL camps. Players like Mark Streit, David Aebischer or Martin Gerber passed the 100-game marker in the big league, Jonas Hiller might be the next in the upcoming season.

In the time of television and internet, the Chicago Blackhawks won’t look like a team from another planet like the NHL teams in 1959 did, but the team from the more skilled and more physical league will still be the team to beat for the Swiss challengers. And because Swiss players are professionals too nowadays, it might not only be a rare opportunity to see an NHL team in Switzerland but also to see tight games and Swiss organizations who won’t show fear but hope to be the first Swiss club team to beat one from the NHL.

MARTIN MERK