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In Valascia he is the boss: coach Luca Cereda. Image: keystone
Eismeister Zaugg
Luca Cereda like Arno del Curto did, but Ambri not like Davos
After 61 years, Ambri-Piotta will leave the legendary Valascia hockey cathedral next summer. Is nostalgia for last season inspiring or paralyzing?
Actually, UNESCO should have declared Valascia, this eroded and drafty stadium, a World Heritage Site long ago. The hockey bulwark in a wild and arid mountainous valley a good 1000 meters above sea level, at the foot of steep mountain slopes, from which avalanches can thunder, seems to have fallen out of time. That is part of its charm.
A legend for a long time: the local stadium of Valascia. Bild: KEYSTONE / TI-PRESS
Valascia is a sporting temple of heroic victories and defeats. Here Ambri had to watch on April 5, 1999 after a 1: 3 in the final fifth game as archrival Lugano celebrated the title. But here Ambri won the Super Cup with a 2-0 win over Magnitogorsk in the same year and became number 1 in Europe. Andy Bathgate, Dale McCourt, Pauli Jaks, Oleg Petrow, Paul DiPietro and generations of Celios made their way into the eternal memory of fans.
The return of the prodigal sons
This is where “La Montanara” has become the most famous anthem of ice hockey victory. No one can tell if it will sound so wonderful in the new temple. Probably not. Without Valascia, Ambri would not have a mythical status in Europe.
Ambri will now move in the summer of 2021. Across town, across from the new stadium designed by star architect Mario Botta on the site of the former military airfield. The new temple, which cost 51 million francs, has become a reality, while it is not possible to build a new arena in Geneva.
The opening ceremony took place shortly before Christmas Eve 2018. Bild: KEYSTONE / TI-PRESS
Management has done a lot of good in other respects as well in recent years. The decision in 2017 to hand over top operating positions to Luca Cereda and Paolo Duca, two of Ambri’s sons, restored the club’s identity and revitalized it. Between 2011 and 2016, Ambri worried about staying in the league (four times in league standings) and the dismissals of coaches (Benoit Laporte, Kevin Constantine, Serge Pelletier, Hans Kossmann) cost a lot of money, energy and sympathy.
It is a worthy farewell to Valascia
Since Luca Cereda Ambri has been a coach and Paolo Duca has headed the sports department, calm has returned. Filippo Lombardi took over as president in difficult times in 2009 and the architect of the new Ambri will one day go down in history as the best president. It is a bitter irony that Ticino voters no longer elected him to the Council of States. Nothing is as hard as the ingratitude of man.
Will Ambri lose her identity without Valascia? That is a concern for later. Now it’s about saying goodbye to Valascia in a dignified way. Why not with a hockey miracle, with the first playoff series won in 21 years? Or is the nostalgia for last season quite paralyzing?
How are the chances? Coach Luca Cereda (39) is the central figure. Not even the great Scotty Bowman or Ralph Krueger could have trained Ambri better in the last three years. The younger coach also deserves praise for the high-performance culture he exemplifies. It’s the easy answer to caring for Arno del Curto. And the question is: what could you accomplish if you had as much talent at your disposal as Del Curto had at Davos?
Ambri has to work on wins
Cereda will never be as talented in Ambri as the masterful HCD of the 21st century. Not even in the new stadium. It’s how it was so often and how it likely will always be in the future: wins against Ambri must be endured by opponents. Ambri has to work on wins. What the team lacks in talent, it makes up for with passion, discipline and selfless style of play.
What are Zwerger, Müller and Co. capable of this season? Image: keystone
Ambri has been living this will to perform with Cereda for three years. He is the perfect coach for Ambri and yet we are driven by the question: what could he do for a great club like Bern or Lugano? As the only coach in the league, he has no temporary contract. But a job that can be terminated for three months. The question of whether Arno del Curto could move to Bern, Lugano or Zurich provided us with cheap and sometimes less cheap polemic material for 20 years. And when he left HCD to join the ZSC Lions, his career came to an end.
Luca Cereda as Arno Del Curto? Then he would have to stay at Ambri until 2039. And then he shouldn’t make the mistake of moving to Zurich.
The hope that Nättinen arrives
So we know: the coach is good. But how good is the team? The dependence on individual players is great. Just not in the central goalkeeper position. Ambri is well protected with Benjamin Conz and Damiano Ciaccio among the goalkeepers. But alas if Michael Fora fails. He is Ambri’s only Swiss national player and no other Swiss defender would have a place in the first two formations of the competition. Ambri relies on excellent performances from goalkeepers and forwards who are disciplined when backing off.
Many hopes rest on the shoulders of Julius Nättinen. Image: keystone
The playoffs were reached in 2019 mainly thanks to goals from Dominik Kubalik. He had scored 25 goals and his successor Robert Sabolic had to be content with 5 goals last season. But now comes Julius Nättinen, the top scorer in the Finnish top league, and Daniele Grassi has returned home after four years in German-speaking Switzerland (Kloten, SCB). You can expect at least 10 goals from him. Offensive penetration is once again great enough to score more than 130 goals. Enough, in fact, to make the playoffs.
But the last season at Valascia is best suited to dramatic losses, only occasionally interrupted by even more dramatic victories. One last fantastic hockey drama to say goodbye to this stage. Something between “Faust” by Goethe and “Endstation Sehnsucht” by Tennessee Williams. On ice, of course. Too much Hollywood and nostalgia will distract from the game. But nothing can happen. There will be no relegation in the spring of 2021.
Forecast:
Place 10.
