Replication interruption: How a main team is ruined in SCB

After 14 games (including the cup), the term of office of the professionally chosen, considered an operetta coach in the sector, has already expired.

Marc Lüthi was once a great master of linear communication. Now he doesn’t even know what it is. The dismissal of the overwhelmed coach is sold as a separation “for personal reasons”, like the resignation of the coach. The work was already a farce, now the employment relationship ends with a farce. Behind this is a very simple impeachment. But for marketing reasons, one shouldn’t talk about firing a coach in times of crisis. Because it costs. Marc Lüthi says that the change of coach is “free, you can name me like that”. Who believes that he pays a thaler.

Even in a season without relegation and with very different concerns than sports, in a season in which the public has accepted defeats as never before since the introduction of the playoffs (1986), this manager was no longer defensible. He had lost his support in the cabin.

What a show!

This absurd coaching theater can show the troubling status of the sports department of one of the most important ice hockey clubs in Europe. Marc Lüthi rejects all criticisms of sports leadership calling them “cheap controversy” in all forms. This is the sporting tragedy of the SCB. As in the fairy tale with the emperor without clothes, the co-owner and manager of the SCB does not see that his sports department is naked in the sense of this fairy tale. Because no one dares to tell him.

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

Junior coach Mario Kogler now takes on the role of coach. To put it politically incorrectly and maliciously: an operetta of this kind 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 – as the height of ridicule – NHL legend Mark Streit, member of the association’s board of directors and co-owner of the club, he takes to the ice at this theater as a “Skill Coach” to 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 also now has a good chance of becoming a cult. With the statement that something must happen after the embarrassing home defeat against Langnau. Truly prophetic words. Something has happened in SCB since then.

The end of a formidable hockey company

In good times, SC Bern could gross more than 30 million euros in 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 starts and ends with a well-managed sports department and a successful team, SC Bern will emerge from the home crisis.

What’s worse than sporting failure: SCB is about to lose the great respect that this great hockey company has built over the years through poor sports management 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 league team is ruined at the SCB and Marc Lüthi does not notice. He should be on his knees thanks to the hockey gods that there is no relegation this season. The SCB would be the number 1 relegation candidate. With a team that would be good enough for rock and roll in the top half of the table.

So I’m done.