Playoff, Season 2010/2011

Junior Swiss Champion! 20 Games, 20 Wins

Last Saturday the juniors A (U18) won the second Playoff Final against the SHC Bettlach and secured themselves the merited title

After the frist game on 19th April, the team was warned. It had become quite obvious, that the team of the province of Solothurn was not ready to leave Belp the title whiteout a heavy struggle. Mentally well prepared Belp travelled to the village at the foot of the Jura Mountains. The aim was clear: to endure the expected heavy offensive of the hosts unharmed and to win then the game. With Fabian Koller, Ianis Grunder and Ronny Beeri not less the three players were not able to participate actively in this game due to injury or illness. Nevertheless Belp could still act with three complete lines. The big squad was surely on of the key points for the success in this season.

As expected, the hosts applied a lot of pressure right from the beginning. Even better vor them, due to a penalty against Belpa captain Marc Müller, they had a power play only a few seconds into the game. But with the exception of some far distance shot, that were an easy prey for goalkeeper Björn Hönger, the host was not able to make any profit of this situation. A total different picture when Belp had a po-wer play shortly after. The ball was passed quickly for several times, Bettlachs box lost the orientation for a short moment and Ruben Wenger could shovel the ball over the line on passes from Luca Streich and Roman Schmid. Things turned even better for Belp. Only 36 seconds later Marco Jutzi, on of Swit-zerland's best U15 players, passed on Cyrill Müller who scored the second goal for the scorpions. The hosts had hardly recovered themselves from this blow, when Luca Streich placed the ball in another power play in the net behind Bettlachs' keeper Ben Imholz, giving Belp a 3:0 lead. in the 7th minute. Now Belp was definitively in a high, almost everything they tried worked. Bettlach had two power plays in the following minutes. But it was Belp that scored on both opportunities. Marc Müller with a nice rush across the rink was responsible for the first short hander, while Timo Fuchs on a surprising far distance shot was author of the second. Second before the end of the period Hendrik Jordan placed the ball a sixth time in the net of the SHC Bettlach.

6 to 0 after 20 minutes, what a beginning of a final! Now it was important to uphold the concentration, to prevent the host from coming back into the game. This worked only entirely, somehow the thoughts of the Belp players were already at the championship celebration, at least partially. So Bettlach came better into the game and was able to score four goals in the central period. But even if Belp was no longer playing at its best, they were able to react whenever the host scored. The second period ended 4 to 4 and Belp went with a six goal advantage into the last period. The goals for Belp were scored by Roman Schmid (twice), Marc Müller and Michael Stucki.

In the opening minutes of the third period, Bettlach reassembled once again all its force, trying to come back into the game. But Belp was able to slow down the speed of the game, and whenever a player of the SHC Bettlach turned up in front of Belps net, Björn Hönger was able to prevent them from scoring. In the closing minutes, Belp took some unnecessary, not to say stupid, penalties which allowed the hosts to score one goal more establishing the final score of 10 to 5. Then the 60 minutes were over, and Belp was Swiss Junior Champion for the fourth time in its club history.

In this season Belp play 20 games and has won all of them, a rather impressive performance. More was not possible, even if the impression stays, that the team was never really pushed to its limit, was never forced to show how good it could really play. This shall not belittle the performance of the players, as it is not that easy to stay motivated when you win game after game. A extraordinary junior season is coming to an end. Not less the 12 players will leave the teams due to their age. They will play in the next year either in the national league A team or in the 3rd division team. Next year a younger team with a smaller squad will be at the start of the junior A championship. But that is futur. For the moment lets enjoy the present and celebrate with: Marc Müller, Roman Schmid, Luca Streich, Björn Hönger, Pelle Steiger, Ianis Grunder, Marco Jutzi, Fabian Koller, Matthias Lüthi, Martin Wägli, Ronny Beeri, Fabi-an Bohnenblust, Timo Fuchs, Hendrik Jordan, Cyrill Müller, Lukas Stettler, Michael Stucki, Patrick Wägli, Ruben Wenger and Robin Worreby.