HC Davos

HC Davos
City:	Davos, Switzerland
League:	National League A
Founded:	1926
Home Arena:	Vaillant Arena (7,080 places)
Colors:	Blue and yellow
General Manager:	Patrick Baetschi
Head Coach:	Arno Del Curto
Captain:	Marc Gianola
Franchise history
NLA championships:	1926, 1927, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1950, 1958, 1960, 1984, 1985, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2009

Hockey Club Davos (HCD) is a hockey club based in Davos, Graubünden, Switzerland. They currently play in the National League A and have won more championships than any other Swiss teams with 29.

Achievements

• Swiss championships won: 29 (1926, 1927, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1950, 1958, 1960, 1984, 1985, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2009)
• Spengler Cups won: 14 (1927, 1933, 1936, 1938, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1951, 1957, 1958, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006)

History

Earliest days

The club began its activities in 1918, thanks to Dr. Kurt Wüst, as a formation club for youth players. The senior team was founded in 1921 and was taken in charge by P. Müller. As soon as 1922, HC Davos was allowed to join the Swiss hockey league. The following year, another Doctor, Dr. Carl Spengler, founded the Spengler Cup. This tournament is annually hosted by HC Davos.

The domination

A mere five years after being created, the club wins its first Swiss Championship title. In the ten years of the 1930 decade, Davos would win nine times the title. All those titles were won in the defunct Swiss A Series, the precursor to the National League A; the first title won by Davos in the current NLA came in 1938, the very year of the league's establishment. Davos repeated the feat in 1939, and from 1941 to 1948. Floowing this string of wins however, Davos' domination began to vanish. The team remained a top flight team, that won three more championships (in 1950, 1958 and 1960), but from then on, the club's fortune twisted for the worse, with the club being relegated to the National League B in 1969.

The 80's and 90's

After ten years in the NLB, Davos climbed back to the NLA in 1979. Lots of changes within the club aimed to retrieved the old stable state of its Glory Days; the team managed to clinch two championships in 1984 and 1985. But instead of marking the return of another domination, it rather ended there for Davos, who again fell into a slump that made them slip back to NLB in 1989 and as far low as the 1.Liga (the country's third highest level) in 1990. The club decided, for the first time, to withdraw itself from its own tournament, the Spengler Cup, as they considered themselves too weak to offer a good enough opposition. They rather let EHC Kloten replace them. The stay in the 1.Liga was however short. In 1992, the team was back in the NLB, and the following season, back to the NLA, from which it never got relegated again.

Nowadays

After having won another title in 2002, Davos found itself in a great position in 2004-05 as the team was strenghtened by lock-outed [NHL]] stars such as Rick Nash, Joe Thornton and Niklas Hagman. Davos clinched another title that year, with Thornton finishing as the team's top scorer. The following season proved a bit harder however, but the team bounced back under Alexandre Daigle's lead in 2007 with another title.

On April 13th 2009, HC Davos was once again crowned national champion after defeating the Kloten Flyers 4 games against 3. These playoffs turned out to be a difficult challenge for Davos, who required seven games in each round of the playoffs to win (4-3 against HC Lugano in the quarterfinals and 4-3 against HC Fribourg-Gottéron in the semi-finals).

Davos Greats

• Lonny Bohonos
• Andreas Camenzind
• Todd Elik
• Beat Equilino
• Patrick Fischer
• Beat Forster
• Niklas Hagman
• Jonas Höglund
• Kevin Miller
• Rick Nash
• Thierry Paterlini
• Jacques Soguel
• Mark Streit
• Joe Thornton
• Bibi Torriani
• Lars Weibel

See also

• Category:HC Davos player
• Category:HC Davos coach

This article is part of the Swiss hockey portal