One of the stranger aspects of German sporting life is the nicknames of the teams in the DEL, or their top ice hockey league. There are examples of1) Nicknames in German
* Augsburger Panther
* Eisbären Berlin
* EV Duisburg "Die Füchse"
* Kölner Haie
* Krefeld Pinguine
* Adler Mannheim
2) Nicknames in English
* DEG Metro Stars
* Frankfurt Lions
* Hamburg Freezers
* Hannover Scorpions
* Iserlohn Roosters
* Straubing Tigers
3) No nickname at all
* ERC Ingolstadt (note that they do have a Panther in their team crest)
4) Nicknames combined with a sponsor
* Sinupret Ice Tigers
5) Nicknames on drugs
* EHC Wolfsburg Grizzly Adams
The Hamburg newspapers sometimes refer jokingly to their local team as the "Tiefkühlschränke" (the word for the applicable household appliance); I'm curious to know if the nickname relates to ice in an
arena or if it's an allusion to Hamburg's fame for warehouses and storage.
I talked a friend of mine from my German class, Gérald (a Swiss who is now a Canadian citizen working in Québec) into going to the game. According to Gérald, the wonderful atmosphere in the ColorLine Arena was what you would expect in a European arena (but maybe not as boisterous as in Lausanne, where the team he supports plays), but definitely better than that in the Montréal Forum. I had to tell him that the fans in Montréal are historically among the more vocal in Canada!
Gérald and I showed up at the rink over an hour before the game started and tried to find two seats together in the fanblock (north end of the Arena) and it took some time to find them--fans in the fanblock get there very early to claim seats (normally by putting their scarf across the seats) and then go into the concourses to socialize. We found some down fairly low in a corner, next to the Holsten Fan Couch and I did my best to get in the camera shots of the guys who were lucky enough to sit there. The fanblock does not stop singing for the whole game, and we were on our feet the whole time. I have never had so much fun at a hockey game!
As usual, I was looking for souvenirs. I almost bought a scarf which featured the title of a song they play in the rink when an opponent gets a penalty, "In Hamburg sagt man Tschüss". (It's cute. They alternate playing that song with some punk song for which I'm still trying to find the title.) Nearly everyone in sight had a scarf (one guy had enough scarves to make a dress out of them) but light blue and 15 Euros just weren't my colour. Something I could have used, and didn't think of at the time, was a Freezers jersey, especially since I plan to play more hockey outdoors and on the ice.
Addendum: Back home, I was quite stunned to find that a friend's copy of NHL2007 has DEL teams in it, including my beloved Freezers!
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