When a 21-year-old comes home at half past nine in the morning, he very likely has a colorful evening. Like Christian Hanke when he got out of the bus last Saturday at 6.30 a.m. The fact that a hundred euphorized people are waiting in front of the door are likely to have experienced very 21-year-olds. You usually did not save your club from relegation. Like Christian Hanke on Friday evening.
The striker scored the decisive goal for the 3-2 victory for the Augsburg Panther in Iserlohn on the last matchday of the regular season in the German ice hockey league. Thanks to its parallel 3-0 win against Wolfsburg, the Düsseldorfer eG has to go to the second league-Augsburg remains first-class, thanks to the better goal difference. “I thought it was shame that either the AEV or DEG had to clear their place,” says AEV coach Larry Mitchell: “But-the Düsseldorfers will forgive me-I would have regretted it even more if we were.” Christian Hanke had prevented the worst.
:The bitter descent in 90 years of club history
Düsseldorfer eG becomes the last of the German ice hockey league, the walk to the second division can hardly be prevented. After the last matchday, anger and frustration, especially towards the club owners, prevail.
Hanke, the antihero who rises to the savior. And a club that frees himself out of the last second out of almost a hopeless situation. “An insane story,” says Mitchell. Actually two mad stories.
Hanke’s start of the season was not as hoped. His first short assignments in the He had received del two years ago, but now: hardly any minutes of play, no scorer points. “I was not mentally at the level to play in the DEL,” says Hanke on Saturday, after only three hours of sleep: “I didn’t have self -confidence.” So the Panther decided that he should get self -confidence from the cooperation partner in Peiting. But even in the third division there were zero goals and zero templates for him on the piece after ten missions: “I was at the point where I no longer knew what to do.”
After eight coaches since 2019, Mitchell has to find a candidate with a longer best way
At about the same time, the Panther decided to part with their head coach Ted Dent. After ten defeats without a single point and the crash to the end of the table, they were at the end with their Latin. Sports director Larry Mitchell, 57, also took on dentes.
Hanke’s blockade then loosened around the turn of the year. “I did a cut, ticked off in 2024, and no longer focused on goals and assists, but on the fun of ice hockey.” And the fun came back, together with 17 points from 16 games and the return to the Augsburg DEL team for the decisive phase of the season. In the 5-1 against DEG, in the direct duel of the two relegation candidates on the penultimate matchday, Hanke shot his first goal of the season. And now, on the last matchday in Iserlohn, the gateway to the 3-1 lead, the Game Winning Goalwhich was ultimately enough for victory and Augsburg guaranteed another year in the first division.
“Every trainer loves it when a risk decision pays off,” says Mitchell: “But whether I would have had the courage 15 years ago to let him play after he was no longer with us – I don’t know.”
A strange thing, this self -confidence.
With the remaining class, so much is certain, important sponsors also remain
“The game against the DEG was more nervous because it was clear: if we lose, it is over,” says Hanke. Two days earlier, they had played a 3-0 lead against the Cologne Haie, lost 3: 4 and fell back to the last place behind the DEG. And when they got 3-2 early in Iserlohn in the last third, the coach Mitchell thought, as he admitted later: “Is the shit going again?” Not this Friday. “After the 5: 1 against DEG we had the cards in our hands,” says Hanke, “and I was convinced that we will win. I also wanted to show myself that I deserve to play. “
For Augsburg, which has come to 14th place in the past two years and only stayed in the DEL because no team of promotion became a master in the DEL2, this 13th place is the outbreak from a vicious circle. At least they hope that in the ice hockey -fembered city. Because they first had to wait for the playoffs of the second division, they could only start planning for the respective league in May. “Now we have a month more time to better prepare for the first division,” says the managing partner Lothar Sigl, whose name has been representative of the Augsburg ice hockey for almost four decades. In April he turned 68, and he has no more to do with the operational business, he says. Nevertheless, he would like to continue to participate in the fact that the Panther will once again move into the playoffs: “Get off or almost get off every year, you don’t want to go.” Larry Mitchell says: “Now we have at least one chance.”
With the remaining class, that much is now certain, important sponsors remain. Mitchell, at the age of eight, even the Augsburg DEL coach with the longest service time, has to find a coach with a longer best way to eat after eight coaches since 2019. He himself will concentrate on his job as a sports director. Being a trainer is the most fun: “But nobody who has not yet experienced what we have experienced is an idea of how much pressure and stress means how many sleepless nights I had.” And none of them was as entertaining as those who ended on Saturday at 6.30 a.m. in front of the Curt Frenzel Stadium: “Now that everything went out so happy for us, you can say that it was worth it.”
#Augsburg #stays #DEL #Christian #Hanke #shoots #Panther #remain #league
