Preview: Playoff-Final

On a first glance Swiss Ballhockey seems to be a little bit boring when it comes to the ques-tion who will win the championship. In the last six years the answer was always the same: The Oberwil Rebells. And in some of the past years, especially at the start of the Rebells' winning series; the championship has been boring indeed, as the Rebells dominated the league as they wanted. This changed somewhat during the last couple of years. Not that the Rebells would have become weaker, not at all, but other teams like the SHC Grenchen-Limpachtal and the SHC Belpa 1107 have become stronger. This year, the Rebells bypassed Grenchen at the top of the standing in the regular season only on the very last day, due to a loss from Grenchen in Belp.

At the very beginning of the season the Rebells and the Scorpions had met each other in another final, in the final of the Euro-Cup. Oberwil won this truly historic game 2 to 0. But what happened since then, how was route of those two teams into the finals?

The Rebells and seven days in November At the beginning of the season everything looked like Oberwil would march through the quali-fication without any problems once again. The champions won seven out of their first nine games clear and without any problems, only versus Grenchen and Belp they struggled a little bit, but won those two games as well. Then on 20th November they lost a home game badly against Grenchen with 4 to 10. Only six days later, they had to play in Belp, and lost again, this time with 7 to 9. The remaining seven games of the regular season were no problem for the Rebells who won 16 out of 18 games and finished the regular season with 48 points on first place.

In the quarterfinals, they eliminated the SHC Martigny rather easily. In the semifinals they faced the Sierre Lions. An easy home win was followed by a tough away win in Sierre last weekend. There was just one other little setback in the season, when the Rebells lost the final of the Swisscup versus Grenchen on Saturday before easter.

The scorpions and a screwed start Being the second best team in Europe, does not mean, that you do not have to work to win against average Swiss teams. That was exactly the lesson the scorpions had to learn in their first game of the season. They messed up their first game in La Chaux-de-Fonds completely losing 7 to 11 against a team that collected only five more points during the rest of the regular season. As the second game was lost too – this time away in Oberwil, something that can happen – Belp found itself suddenly at the bottom of the standings. The next four games were won and Belp climbed up to the third place. Then in October four more points were given away. First the SHC Bonstetten-Wettswil could only be defeated in overtime and then the away game against Aegerten-Biel was lost 11 to 16. From then on, Belp won the remaining ten games of the regular season, the last one against Grenchen only in the shootout, but that didn't really matter at that point in time.

The playoff quarterfinals turned out to be much more difficult than expected. The SHC Bet-tlach, led by Rob Ryhorchuk turned out tougher than expected. The first game was won 9 to 2, in hindsight way too easy. The second game in Bettlach was lost 3 to 4 after overtime. The decisive third game in Belp was contested until the end, with the scorpions winning 10 to 7.

The semifinals versus Grenchen were something special. It was the fifth time those two teams met in the playoffs, and Grenchen had won all prior series with 2 to 1. In the beginning it looked good for the scorpions. Grenchen lost badly at home with 5 to 10. But they came back into the series one week later, winning in Belp with 6 to 5. Would the old curse "Belp can't win playoff series vs Grenchen" strike again? It didn't! On the next day Tyler McFadden scored five seconds before the end, the last point under an excellent game of ballhockey, scoring the decisive 8 to 7 for Belp. With this curse overcome the next one is waiting "Belp can't win playoff finals"; well, why not overcome that one too?

What to expect of the final? All in all two of Europe's best ballhockey teams will fight for the title. Two or three great and highly contested games can be expected. Who is the favorite? If you ask a scorpion, he would most likely say the Rebells, asking a Rebell, he would see it maybe the other way around. Details and the performance on the match days will most likely decide this very at-tractive series.

In the end either Belp will break another curse and become Swiss champion for the first time in club history or the Rebells will win the seventh title in a row and equalize the incredible record of the Montreal Red Lite in Canada.