Hockey Club Lugano, often abbreviated to HC Lugano or HCL, is a professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

club based in

Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. The team competes in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

(NL) and has won seven Swiss championships.

History

The founding of HC Lugano took place on 11 February 1941, when they participated on Muzzano Lake their first games against

Ambrì Ambrì is a Swiss village in the municipality of Quinto, Leventina District, Canton of Ticino. Geography Ambrì is located in the Leventina Valley, upon the southwestern shore of Ticino river and below the Lepontine Alps, next to the neighbo ...

, Muzzano, Massagno and Paradiso. On 1 December 1957, the first artificial ice rink was opened, at the

Pista La Resega ''Pista'' is a genus of polychaete Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many br ...

. Among those present was also the man who, 30 years later, was to take HC Lugano to the top of Swiss and international hockey: Geo Mantegazza, an engineer by profession, who had done the static calculations of the Resega and thus the first contacts had with the family earning the club the nickname of the "Bianconeri" acknowledging their Italian speaking heritage. In 1963–64, Lugano rose to the

National League B The Swiss League is the second tier of the main professional ice hockey league in Switzerland, behind the National League. The winners of the league each season plays a best-of-seven series against the bottom team of the NL, and if they win, the ...

, most notably through the contributions of defender Elwyn Friedrich and Forward Roland Bernasconi, both national players and Swiss champions with Villars. In the 1970–71 season, the Bianconeri's promotion to the tope flight National League A was realised for the first time in franchise history, playing two seasons before returning to the NLB. In the 1981–82 season Lugano returned, together with Ambrì, back in the NLA. In the 1982–83 season, Mantegazza hired Swedish coach John Slettvoll, who won numerous championships in his tenure.

Venue

The Pista La Resega hockey arena in Lugano is primarily used for ice hockey and is the home arena of HC Lugano, HC Lugano Ladies Team, HC Lugano-Ceresio and HC Porza. It was built in 1995, after the demolition of the previous one, and can hold 8,000 people.

Honors

Champions

* NL Championship ''(7)'': 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1999, 2003, 2006 * SL Championship ''(1)'': 1982

Runners-up

* NL Championship ''(8)'': 1985, 1989, 1991, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2016, 2018 *

Spengler Cup The Spengler Cup is an annual invitational ice hockey tournament held in Davos, Switzerland. First held in 1923, the Spengler Cup is often cited as the oldest invitational ice hockey tournament in the world. The event is hosted by the Swiss tea ...

''(3)'':

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

Season-by-season records

Players

Current roster

Honored members

Franchise records and leaders

All-time scoring leaders

Team records

HC Lugano records in the Swiss National League A.

HC Lugano Ladies Team

The HC Lugano Ladies Team is a semi-professional women's ice hockey team that competes in the Swiss Women's A League. The club was officially founded on May 22, 1990. They won the Swiss Championship on 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010. In 2007, the HC Lugano Ladies Team qualified for the final round of the

IIHF European Women's Champions Cup IIHF European Women's Champions Cup (EWCC) was an annual women's ice hockey club tournament, contested by the national women's ice hockey champions from several European ice hockey playing nations. The event was established and organized by th ...

and even won the bronze medal 2010.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lugano, HC Ice hockey teams in Switzerland

HC Lugano Hockey Club Lugano, often abbreviated to HC Lugano or HCL, is a professional ice hockey club based in Lugano, Switzerland. The team competes in the National League (NL) and has won seven Swiss championships. History The founding of HC Lugano took ...

Ice hockey clubs established in 1941 1941 establishments in Switzerland Swiss Women's League teams