Iserlohn Roosters
Iserlohn Roosters | |
---|---|
City | Iserlohn, Germany |
League | Deutsche Eishockey Liga |
Founded | 1959 |
Home arena | Eissporthalle Iserlohn |
Colors | Red, White |
General manager | Karsten Mende |
Head coach | Jari Pasanen |
Captain | Mike York |
Website | iserlohn-roosters.de |
The Iserlohn Roosters are a professional ice hockey team based in Iserlohn, North-Rhine-Westphalia. They are members of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga since 2000 and play their home games at the Eissporthalle Iserlohn which is also known as Eissporthalle am Seilersee. Playing fifteen years in the DEL the team made the playoffs three times. The Roosters are widely regarded for their fans and having one of the best atmospheres at home games in Europe despite having just a capacity for 4967 spectators. The club caused much controversy in 1987 when under Heinz Weifenbach a US$900,000 advertising deal was signed for former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's The Green Book. The book is widely acknowledged as having been inspired by Mao Zedong's The Little Red Book.
Contents
History
The history of ice hockey in Iserlohn began in the neighbouring town of Hemer. In a district of Hemer called Deilinghofen were deployed Canadian soldiers. They came to the town after the end of the Korean War in 1953 and soon built an arena - first without a roof. The teenagers in Deilinhofen were interested in this strange kind of sport and wanted to play it, too. They played on streets or frozen ponds and were allowed to play in the arena in 1957 for the first time. Recognizing the joy of the teenagers they got first changing coaches, later with Charles McCuaig a steady trainer. After a long preparation time the first game against a Canadian youth team from Soest was on 8 March 1958 in front of 120 people. Deilinghofen played well, but lost 2-6. The equipment was borrowed by the soldiers. After that game, the matches were more steady and with more bystanders, so the arena had to get a roof in 1958.
EC Deilinghofen (1959–1980)
On 28 February 1959 EC Deilinghofen was founded. In 1959 a team from Deilinghofen started in a junior league and reached the second place. A year later they took part in the German championship and finished fifth. In the second season 1960–61 they came first in North Rhine-Westphalia, and were the second best team in the country.[citation needed]
Between 1962 and 1964 they were champions of the north of Germany, but they lost the play offs against the champions of the south and so missed promotion, but were eventually promoted.[citation needed]
In 1971 the Canadian soldiers were disengaged and the new British soldiers were not interested in ice hockey, so the team had to search for a new home. Local politicians wanted to have an arena in Iserlohn. After the agreement of Iserlohn's town council the Eissporthalle am Seilersee was built[citation needed]
In the 1976–77 season Deilinghofen finished two places behind Kaufbeuren in the new Zweite Bundesliga. But Kaufbeuren waived the promotion and the ECD got the chance to play in Germany's top hockey league for the first time.[citation needed]
ECD Iserlohn (1980–1987)
In 1980 the club was renamed ECD Iserlohn, because the arena was there for years. In the following season the team was relegated for the first time in its history. Two years later it moved up again. And the next years were the best and most successful seasons in the club's history. In 1986 the ECD reached the semi-final in the playoffs with stars like Jaroslav Pouzar and Martti Jarkko. But these players also cost a lot. The president Heinz Weifenbach looked for help in Libya, where Muammar al-Gaddafi agreed to pay money if the team advertised his "Green Book".[1] On 4 December 1987 they did. A few days later the ECD Iserlohn was strapped.[by whom?]
ECD Sauerland (1988–1994)
The next season the ECD Sauerland was founded. They started playing in the Oberliga, although Weifenbach wanted to begin in the Bundesliga. The club had the same, big financial problems as its predecessors. The 1991–92 season was a catastrophe, so the fans were frightened to miss the license. The ECD got the license, but went bankrupt a few days after the end of season.
ECD Sauerland Iserlohn Penguins (1994)
Only one day later, on 9 April 1994, the ECD Sauerland Iserlohn Penguins was founded, but the pewee players didn't contract in, so the club hadn't a chance to survive.
Iserlohner EC (1994–2000)
The Iserlohner EC was founded on 20 April in the same year. The new committee wanted to avoid financial adventures. After one season the team moved up to the second best league. The following two years were more difficult, but new players during the season revived the club. In 1997 a new coach came to Iserlohn: Greg Poss. After three successful years, the club could move up again, because they bought the license of Starbulls Rosenheim. The arena in Deilinghofen was torn down in 1999, 40 years after the foundation of the ECD. Many people from Deilinghofen protested against this.
Iserlohn Roosters (since 2000)
Iserlohner EC joined the Deutsche Eishockey Liga in 2000, and adopted the name Iserlohn Roosters. IEC founded a GmbH for the team which administrates the finances and the organisation. The GmbH was named the Iserlohn Roosters GmbH. All junior teams were still under the control of the IEC. The Roosters continually had the lowest budget of all DEL-teams and the media often referred them as an underdog. In their first two seasons the Roosters placed 15th and 12th.
In the 2002–03 season playoffs were again missed, failing just two points short, although the German champion of this year, the Krefeld Pinguine, were beaten 8-1 at the last day of play. For the next season Poss left the club and went on to coach the Nürnberg Ice Tigers, Iserlohn's named Dave Whistle as new coach but after only nine games Doug Mason was his successor. In the lockout season in 2004–05, Mike York and John-Michael Liles came to Iserlohn and helped to reach 11th place despite still the smallest budget in the league. York signed with Iserlohn after his old college friend Bryan Adams, who was the captain of the Roosters, talked to him. Brian Gionta also signed, but left without having played because his wife's pregnancy.
Twelve players left the club in the summer of 2005, but the Roosters were able to make some great activities on the transfer market, the biggest in signing former DEL-topscorer Brad Purdie and former NHL-player Mark Greig for two years. Nevertheless they got just the eleventh place again despite having the best powerplay in the league. In March 2006, Mason left Iserlohn for Kölner Haie and Geoff Ward came to Iserlohn to coach. After again finishing another season in eleventh place, Ward then left Iserlohn during the summer 2007 to be an assistant coach for the Boston Bruins of the NHL.
After defeating DEG Metro Stars 5:1 in the opening game of the season 2006-07 the Roosters had caught the first place for one week for the first time in their history. For the season 2007-08 the new coach of the Roosters was Rick Adduono. The Roosters improved the team with Norm Maracle, Bob Wren. After the fifth game they maintained a playoff rank and were able to keep it. Improved offense was due to Robert Hock and Michael Wolf starting to dominate the league as native players, breaking the dominance of North American players. Wolf was the top goal scorer and Hock became league top point scorer. The third man in their line was either Tyler Beechey, who was first signed on a try-out.contract, or Brad Tapper. Also the line with Jimmy Roy, Pat Kavanagh and Ryan Ready helped to unexpectedly reach the playoffs. But in the quarterfinals they were defeated by the Frankfurt Lions in game 7.
For the next season the Roosters signed former New York Islanders coach Steve Stirling. The team failed to continue the way they had the year before and Stirling was fired in February after the team fell out of playoff position. In the summer many players voiced critique to Stirlings and assistant coach, Ulrich Liebsch, became the new head coach. Many key players left the team. Due to the financial crisis the Roosters announce to look for young talented players and didn't focus on veterans for the 2009-10 season.
Players
Current roster
Updated September 8, 2015.[2]
Season records
Season | Games | Won | Lost | Tie | OTL | SOL | Points | Goals for |
Goals against |
Rank | Playoffs |
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2000–01 | 60 | 23 | 31 | 0 | 6 | - | 68 | 152 | 189 | 15 | Did not qualify |
2001–02 | 60 | 23 | 28 | 0 | 9 | - | 74 | 154 | 183 | 12 | Did not qualify |
2002–03 | 52 | 25 | 19 | 8 | 0 | - | 75 | 142 | 132 | 9 | Did not qualify |
2003–04 | 52 | 19 | 26 | 0 | 7 | - | 59 | 137 | 169 | 12 | Did not qualify |
2004–05 | 52 | 21 | 26 | 0 | 5 | - | 64 | 138 | 156 | 11 | Did not qualify |
2005–06 | 52 | 21 | 26 | - | 0 | 5 | 65 | 166 | 178 | 11 | Did not qualify |
2006–07 | 52 | 24 | 24 | - | 1 | 3 | 70 | 148 | 163 | 11 | Did not qualify |
2007–08 | 56 | 33 | 18 | - | 4 | 1 | 96 | 208 | 196 | 5 | Lost in quarterfinals |
2008–09 | 52 | 22 | 18 | - | 5 | 7 | 71 | 171 | 187 | 11 | Did not qualify |
2009–10 | 56 | 26 | 26 | - | 3 | 1 | 74 | 166 | 183 | 11 | Did not qualify |
2010–11 | 52 | 21 | 22 | - | 5 | 4 | 68 | 150 | 159 | 12 | Did not qualify |
2011–12 | 52 | 25 | 19 | - | 4 | 4 | 77 | 150 | 150 | 10 | Lost in playoff qualifications |
2012–13 | 52 | 20 | 29 | - | 2 | 1 | 59 | 130 | 167 | 13 | Did not qualify |
2013–14 | 52 | 19 | 22 | - | 2 | 3 | 74 | 147 | 149 | 10 | Lost in quarterfinals |
2014–15 | 52 | 28 | 17 | - | 4 | 3 | 86 | 179 | 150 | 6 | Lost in quarterfinals |
Individual team records
As at end of 2012–13 season.[3]
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References
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.. |
- Official homepage (German)
- Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with unsourced statements from February 2015
- Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from June 2013
- Articles with hCards
- Articles with German-language external links
- Deutsche Eishockey Liga teams
- Iserlohn
- Ice hockey teams in Germany
- Sports clubs established in 1959
- 1959 establishments in West Germany