EC KAC

Klagenfurt Athletic Sports Club or EC KAC (German: Klagenfurter Athletiksport Club) is a professional ice hockey team in the Austrian Erste Bank Hockey League. The team plays their home games in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Austria at Stadthalle Klagenfurt. EC KAC has won the most Austrian ice hockey Championships, a total of 31 times including 11 consecutive titles from 1964 to 1974, and four consecutive from 1985 to 1988. Most recently they won it in 2019

Klagenfurt AC
CityKlagenfurt, Carinthia, Austria
LeagueErste Bank Eishockey Liga
Founded1909 (1909)
Home arenaStadthalle Klagenfurt
(Capacity: 5,500)
Colors   
Owner(s)Dr. Will Schasche
General managerOliver Pilloni
Head coachPetri Matikainen[1]
CaptainManuel Ganahl
WebsiteEC KAC
Franchise history
1909–EC KAC
Championships
Austrian Champions31 (1934, 1935, 1952, 1955, 1960, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1991, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2009, 2013, 2019)

History

The Klagenfurt Athletic Sports Club was founded on 18 September 1909 as an association.[2] In 1919 the first attempts to establish an ice hockey team were trialled with an initial two-year apprenticeship from 1923 to 1925, before hockey was established as a full-fledged association in 1926.[3]

In 1926, EC KAC joined the Austrian Ice Hockey Federation. At that time, there were no uniforms and the hockey players wore gym shorts, soccer socks, football jerseys, and skates known as Friesen, which used shoes made of wood with a metal bar as a runner, which were laced with leather straps on the feet. The puck was initially made from two soles of women's shoes nailed together. Much depended more on the ingenuity and dedication of the players and the preparation of the ice surface at the Kreuzberglteich.

In the 1933–34 season, EC KAC won its first league title and thus stopped the almost uninterrupted dominance of the Vienna Ice Skating Association. It marked the first time the title had not been awarded to a team from Vienna. The Second World War interrupted play abruptly and post-war it took a long time to get the league back functioning properly. However, many stars from the KAC's first league title success could again be counted to be the nucleus and further accelerated the rise of EC KAC well into the 1950s.

Between 1952 and 1960, KAC managed three further League titles, in a period in which Innsbruck EV were prominent in the Austrian Championship. With games still played outdoors and susceptible to inclement weather, on 22 November 1959, the Stadthalle Klagenfurt complex opened, which after several modifications is still in use today as the home rink of EC KAC.

At the turn of the 1960s, with the influx of influential players such as Dieter Kalt Snr and Sepp Puschnig, KAC sowed the seeds in dominating the Austrian championship from 1964 to 1980, in which the title went fifteen times to Klagenfurt. The team's only serious challenger in that time was ATSE Graz, which broke through with titles in 1975 and 1978.

During this time, EC KAC also partook in several European Cups. They first played in the 1965–66 season, and in the following 1966–67 season, the team reached the semi-finals and had to compete, as in the following season, against ZLK Brno. In 1969–70, EC KAC reached the final against HC CSKA Moscow, where they lost. Overall, EC KAC participated in the tournament nineteen times; only two fewer than the record held by CSKA Moscow.

Players

Current roster

Updated 27 June 2019.[4]

# Nat Player Pos S/G Age Acquired Birthplace
46 Johannes Bischofberger C/LW L 26 2016 Dornbirn, Austria
3 David Fischer (A) D R 32 2016 Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
17 Manuel Ganahl W L 30 2019 Bludenz, Austria
21 Manuel Geier (C) W R 33 2008 Judenburg, Austria
19 Stefan Geier W L 33 2008 Judenburg, Austria
16 Patrick Harand (A) F L 36 2012 Wien, Austria
11 Lukas Haudum C L 23 2019 Linz, Austria
30 Lars Haugen G L 33 2018 Oslo, Norway
27 Thomas Hundertpfund (A) F L 31 2014 Klagenfurt, Austria
18 Thomas Koch C L 37 2011 Klagenfurt, Austria
10 Andrew Kozek LW L 34 2018 Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada
80 Nikolaus Kraus F L 24 2015 Wien, Austria
72 Siim Liivik C L 32 2018 Paide, Estonia
31 David Madlener G L 28 2016 Feldkirch, Austria
50 Matt Neal F L 29 2016 Minesing, Ontario, Canada
8 Nick Petersen RW R 31 2018 Wakefield, Quebec, Canada
81 Marco Richter LW L 25 2016 Wien, Austria
84 Ramon Schnetzer D L 24 2016 Feldkirch, Austria
28 Martin Schumnig D R 31 2006 Klagenfurt, Austria
24 Steven Strong D L 27 2015 Villach, Austria
92 Clemens Unterweger D L 28 2018 Lienz, Austria
47 Marcel Witting RW L 25 2018 Hall in Tirol, Austria

References
  1. "Petri Matikainen wird Head Coach | EC-KAC - Klagenfurt Eishockey". www.kac.at (in German). Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  2. St. Johann Metz, Hane Witek and Thomas Zeloth, ed. (2008). Nach Spielzeit. National Archives. p. 7.
  3. 75 Years of KAC, 1909-1984. EC KAC. 1984. p. 33.
  4. "EC KAC - Team -Roster". EC KAC. 27 June 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.