Fribourg-Gottéron are Swiss ice hockey champions for the first time - and have sent an entire, bilingual canton into ecstasy. The triumph may come as a surprise, but it is no coincidence.
30.04.2026, 23:07
30.04.2026, 23:55
SDA
Hardly any other club in Switzerland lives as strongly from emotions as the Fribourg-Gottéron field hockey club. This passion is both a curse and a blessing. It can cloud the sense of reality, but it helps to ignite an unbridled euphoria and to stand together in emergency situations. What is possible when enthusiasm and clever management come together has been impressively demonstrated by Freiburg this season.
The word passion also contains the word suffering. The passionate supporters have experienced this especially since the so-called "Copains" were promoted to the NLA in 1980. A total of five second places, four lost play-off finals - the grail was often supposedly within reach, but there was always only disappointment. In between, the club also came close to bankruptcy twice and literally had to be saved from the abyss with fundraising campaigns.
Many obstacles in the playoffs
It is therefore fitting that the path to the first championship title this year was also paved with obstacles. After a very good qualifying campaign, Switzerland's best forward Sandro Schmid was injured in the last game before the playoffs, and top scorer Marcus Sörensen only returned shortly before the final after a long injury break. In the quarter-finals, an initially cramped team only managed to avoid an embarrassing early exit against Rapperswil-Jona in overtime of the seventh game after falling behind. In the final against an overpowering Davos, Gottéron won again in the finalissima and secured the overdue first championship title - for once, the necessary luck was on the Dragons' side.
It is the culmination of a steady development from the eternal, somewhat chaotic underdog to a permanent fixture in the top positions of the National League. The last few years have fundamentally changed the club. The passion is still there, but the foundations are more professional. Retiring captain Julien Sprunger, who played in one playoff final in 2013 and lost to Bern, put it this way: "We used to celebrate every win, every playoff round we survived. Now the goals are higher. You're happy for a moment, but you know that there's more to come."
New stadium as initial spark
The club took the decisive step with the completely renovated stadium, which was inaugurated in fall 2020. With a good 9,300 seats, it is now the fourth-largest arena in Switzerland and has now been sold out for 101 games - for over three years. This gives the once financially precarious organization a solid foundation, as do the large, state-affiliated sponsors Kantonalbank and Groupe E (electricity company).
This is fitting for an association that unites bankers and office workers, French and German speakers, young and old, town and country of an entire canton like no other. Bilingualism in particular is strongly practiced, most obviously in this final with the singing of the national anthem in a mix of French and German.
The financial strength has been put to good use in recent years. With Christoph Bertschy and Andrea Glauser, two deserving national team players with long contracts were brought back from Lausanne. Both are Fribourg natives and former Gottéron juniors, while Sandro Schmid, Jan Dorthe and Kevin Nicolet are three other players from the club's own youth ranks. Coming from Zug, the young Attilio Biasca and Ludvig Johnson brought a breath of fresh air. Defensemen such as Simon Seiler and Maximilian Streule, who are underestimated by other clubs, provide the necessary physical toughness.
Too cheesy for Hollywood, not for Freiburg
The appointment of four-time Champions League winner Roger Rönnberg as head coach, who is coveted throughout Europe, was a veritable coup this season. The self-confident Swede immediately caused a stir by publicly declaring that he had already looked at a map to find a suitable location for a championship celebration. According to insiders, Rönnberg's demanding manner is not appreciated by all players, but his success proves him right. Like Davos, he consistently used four lines. Somewhat surprisingly, his team was able to keep up with the high tempo of the favorites until the end.
The ending with the trophy in the hands of Julien Sprunger, who retires as a club icon after 1186 championship games - all for Gottéron - would probably be too cheesy even for Hollywood. But it fits perfectly with this institution of boundless emotion.
