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SCL Tigers
SCL Tigers
City	Langnau im Emmental, Switzerland
League	National League
Founded	1946
Home arena	Emmental Versicherung Arena
Colours
Owner(s)	Peter Jakob
General manager	Simon Laager
Head coach	Thierry Paterlini
Captain	Harri Pesonen
Website	Official website
Franchise history
1946–1999	Schlittschuh Club Langnau
1999–present	SCL Tigers
	Current season

The SC Langnau Tigers are a professional ice hockey team from Langnau im Emmental, Switzerland. They play in the National League (NL). The team plays its home games in the 6,050-seat Emmental Versicherung Arena, which is currently one of the smallest arenas in the NL.

History

Originally formed as the Ice skating club Langnau, the team was founded on 30 January 1946. The 1948–49 season started in the summer due to the planing on the grounds of the Napro, where the ice rink was to be built. The ice rink began operation on 26 December 1948. SC Langnau, who had not yet completed any championship games, secured the "Begert Cup". Nine out of 16 games were won. The game against Rotblau Bern was attended by over 1000 spectators.

SC Langnau participated for the first time within the Swiss Championship, starting in the lowest league stage of the Swiss ice hockey. Opponents in the 1949–50 season were Roggwil, Olten, Münsingen and the second team of Red Blue Bern of the Serie B. In the season 1950–51, SC Langnau took part in the league operation of Serie B, Group 6 Central Switzerland. Langnau was group winner for the first time, but lost in the final against Bern. Langnau won the Cantonal Cup of the Serie B. In that season, the team completed a total of 23 games, including 16 at home.

The SCL Tigers, promoted to the NLA in 1998, are the successor club of the Schlittschuh-Club Langnau (SCL), which was outsourced to SCL Tigers AG in 1999 under the direction of President René Zeh. Zeh became the first chairman of the board. The club's club logo comes from the long-standing main sponsor, the long-established traditional company "Tiger Käse AG" (since 2004 " Emmi Fondue AG"), which has been sponsoring the club with its "Tiger" brand since the 1970s.

SCL Tigers versus SC Bern in an outdoor game on January 14, 2007

In October 2001, businessman Ruedi Soltermann took over Zeh's Presidency to lead SCL.^[1] In the summer of 2002, the club confirmed to have a debt amount of more than one million francs with the financial difficulties plaguing the club in the following years.^[2]

At the beginning of February 2005, Armin Müller was removed from the Board of Directors. According to the SCL, Müller, who was responsible for sponsorship, promised advertising revenues of nearly 1.3 million francs for the 2004–05 season, of which only a fraction arrived. The SCL Tigers announced that they would file charges for document forgery and misleading management.^[3] With SCL's long standing economical trouble's, an initiative "Save the Tigers" was founded in July 2009 with entrepreneur, Peter Jakob.^[4] In September 2009, Jakob became the President to the board of directors of SCL Tigers AG, and over the following years added financial stability to the Tigers and erasing their debts.^[5]

After their initial promotion in 1998, they played in Switzerland's top hockey level for 15 years. At the end of the 2012–2013 NLA season, they were defeated in the promotion/relegation games by Lausanne HC and were relegated to the National League B. SCL Tigers became the champions of the 2014–15 NLB season and gained the right to play against the worst team of 2014–15 NLA season in the promotion/relegation round. They returned to National League A for the 2015–2016 season after they defeated the Rapperswil-Jona Lakers in four games. Langnau was the eighth most attended team in the NLA for the 2015–16 season, averaging 5,868 (98%).^[6]

Honors

Champions

NL Championship (1): 1976
SL Championship (5): 1934, 1989, 1957, 1999, 2015

Runners-up

NL Championship (3): 1970, 1977, 1978

Players

Current roster

Updated 5 July 2024.^[7]


No.	Player	Pos	S/G	Age	Acquired	Birthplace
28	Dario Allenspach	C	L	22	2024	Herisau, Switzerland
42	Phil Baltisberger	D	L	29	2024	Zofingen, Switzerland
19	Pascal Berger	RW	R	35	2016	Burgdorf, Switzerland
39	Luca Boltshauser	G	L	31	2022	Zurich, Switzerland
43	Claudio Cadonau	D	R	36	2022	Zurich, Switzerland
38	Stéphane Charlin	G	L	24	2022	Geneva, Switzerland
93	Nolan Diem	C	R	31	2018	Herisau, Switzerland
83	Darels Dukurs	F	L	21	2023	Sigulda, Latvia
72	Samuel Erni	D	L	33	2017	Frauenfeld, Switzerland
10	Joshua Fahrni	C	R	22	2024	Switzerland
66	Jiří Felcman	C	L	19	2023	Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
21	Bastian Guggenheim	D	L	23	2020	Bern, Switzerland
87	Timo Jenni	RW	L	20	2024
13	Oskars Lapinskis	F	L	22	2021	Riga, Latvia
8	Saku Mäenalanen	F	L	22	2023	Tornio, Finland
37	Sean Malone	C	L	30	2023	Buffalo, New York, United States
15	Tim Mathys	D	L	20	2024	Huttwil, Switzerland
24	Noah Meier	D	L	22	2023	Switzerland
51	Claude-Curdin Paschoud	D	L	30	2024	Davos, Switzerland
82	Harri Pesonen (C)	LW	L	36	2021	Muurame, Finland
94	Patrick Petrini	F	R	23	2021	Switzerland
50	Juuso Riikola	D	L	31	2023	Joensuu, Finland
63	Dario Rohrbach	RW	L	26	2022	Langenthal, Switzerland
91	Matthias Rossi	RW	R	33	2023	Menziken, Switzerland
25	Aleksi Saarela	C	L	27	2021	Helsinki, Finland
46	Vili Saarijärvi (A)	D	R	27	2022	Rovaniemi, Finland
22	Joel Salzgeber	C	L	23	2020	Switzerland
40	Flavio Schmutz (A)	C	L	30	2020	Andwil, Switzerland
71	Julian Schmutz	C	R	30	2023	Bern, Switzerland
90	Jonas Schwab	D	L	20	2024	Bern, Switzerland
7	Ramon Tanner	C	L	25	2023	Appenzell, Switzerland
9	Brian Zanetti	D	L	21	2023	Lugano, Switzerland

Honored members

SCL Tigers retired numbers
No.	Player	Position	Career	No. retirement
12	Todd Elik	C	1998–2000, 2002–2009	–
17	Daniel Aegerter	D	1992–2008	–
26	Martin Gerber	G	1994–2001, 2004–2005	–
44	Walter Gerber^[8]	F	1990–1991, 1994–1998	–

References

^ "SCL Tigers record 700,000 francs loss". eishockey.ch (in French). 2017-04-01. Retrieved 2017-04-01.
^ "Unrealistic Budget". nzz.ch (in German). 2002-07-30. Retrieved 2016-05-06.
^ "Acute liquidity bottlenecks at SCL Tigers". nzz.ch (in German). 2005-02-22. Retrieved 2017-04-01.
^ "Save the Tigers founded". eishockey.ch (in French). 2009-07-07. Retrieved 2017-04-01.
^ "A healthy jubilee". derbund.ch (in German). 2016-02-16. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
^ "Hockey attendances released". hockeyfans.ch (in French). 2016-05-06. Retrieved 2016-05-06.
^ "SCL Tigers team roster" (in German). www.scltigers.ch. Retrieved 2024-07-05.
^ "Retired numbers" (in German). SCL Tigers. July 18, 2019. Retrieved July 19, 2019.