Replica Suspension: How a Master Team Gets Ruined at SCB

After 14 games (including the cup), the term of the professionally chosen, who is considered an operetta coach in the industry, is over.

Marc Lüthi was once a great master of linear communication. Now he can’t even tell what it is. The dismissal of the overwhelmed coach is sold as a separation “for personal reasons”, like the resignation of the coach. The job was already a sham, now the employment relationship ends with a sham. Behind this is a very simple impeachment. But for marketing reasons, one should not speak of firing a coach in times of crisis. Because it costs. Marc Lüthi says that the change of coach is “free, you can quote me like that”. Who thinks a thaler pays.

Even in a season without relegation and with concerns really different from sports, in a season in which the public accepted the losses as never since the introduction of the playoffs (1986), this coach was no longer sustainable. He had lost his support in the cockpit.

What a show!

This absurd coaching theater may show the disturbing state of the sports department of one of the largest ice hockey companies in Europe. Marc Lüthi dismisses all criticism of sports leadership as “cheap controversy” in all its forms. That is the sports tragedy of SCB. As in the fairy tale with the emperor without clothes, the SCB co-owner and manager does not see that his sports department is there naked in the sense of this fairy tale. Because nobody dares to tell him.

The constellation is downright grotesque. Sporting director Alex Chatelain has been deposed as a scapegoat for the self-inflicted sporting setback: The champions missed the 2020 playoffs, which then did not take place. But he stayed and is now the most important employee of his successor, Florence Schelling, as “shadow sports director.”

Junior coach Mario Kogler now assumes the role of coach. To put it politically incorrectly and maliciously: such a coach operetta can only be performed with an Austrian in the lead role. And yes, Alex Chatelain of all people helps a bit with team training and of course assistant Alex Reinhard remains and – to top it all off the ridiculous – NHL legend Mark Streit, member of the association’s board of directors and Co-owner of the club, he descends on the ice in this theater as “Skill Coach” will appear as an extra. What a show!

At least the entertainment value is maximum. Anita Weyermann from Bern once achieved cult status with the slogan “Gring ache u seckle”: it was the recipe for success as a runner. Florence Schelling now has a good chance of becoming a cult too. With the declaration that something must happen after the embarrassing home loss to Langnau. Truly prophetic words. Something has happened at SCB since then.

The disappearance of a formidable hockey company

In good times, SC Bern can bill more than 30 million euros with gastronomy. The SCB can be a great “marketing machine.” But SC Bern is above all a sports company.

Only when Marc Lüthi realizes that everything in a sports company begins and ends with a well-run sports department and a successful team, will SC Bern emerge from the home crisis.

What’s worse than sports failure: the SCB is about to lose the great respect that this great hockey company has built for itself over the years through sports mismanagement in just a few months.

The hard-earned rise and self-inflicted decline of this formidable hockey company – the best, the most dramatic, yes, the most incredible story of the last 25 years in Swiss team sport.

A championship team is ruined at SCB and Marc Lüthi doesn’t realize it. He should be on his knees thanking the hockey gods that there is no relegated team this season. The SCB would be the number one candidate for relegation. With a rig that would be good enough to rock and roll in the upper half of the board.

So I’m done.