The Munich Barons were a professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

team between 1999 and 2002 run by the

Anschutz Entertainment Group Anschutz Entertainment Group, Inc. (AEG), also known as AEG Worldwide, is an American global sporting and music entertainment presenter and a subsidiary of the Anschutz Corporation. It is the world's largest owner of sports teams and sports ...

(AEG) in the German Ice Hockey League (''

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

: Deutsche Eishockey Liga - DEL''). The best year the team had was in 2000 when they won the German championship. After long negotiations among the Anschutz Group, the ice hockey teams Landshut Cannibals, ESC Munich and the Olympiapark Munich GmbH, the creation of the Munich Ice Hockey Club GmbH was announced on the 1 June 1999. The license for the

DEL Del, or nabla, is an operator used in mathematics (particularly in vector calculus) as a vector differential operator, usually represented by the nabla symbol ∇. When applied to a function defined on a one-dimensional domain, it denotes ...

was carried over from the debt-ridden

Landshut Cannibals EV Landshut, also known as EVL Landshut Eishockey and formerly known as the Landshut Cannibals, are a professional ice hockey team based in Landshut, Bavaria, Germany. They currently play in Deutsche Eishockey Liga 2, the second level of ice hock ...

. The team played its home games in the Olympia-Eisstadion. The name and logo of the ''Barons'' were unveiled in the middle of June of that year. Despite a poor start, the Munich Barons team – whose players were brought together from several other teams – was able to come together and finished in second place in their first season in the DEL. In the

play-off The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eith ...

s, the team surprised all doubters and eventually became German champions. In spite of that success, the number of spectators at game was lower than expected (regular season: 2,800; playoffs: 4,900). In the 2000–2001 season, the Barons finished in third place in the regular season. In the playoffs, they reached the finals, but lost a hard-fought battle against the eventual champions, the

Adler Mannheim The Adler Mannheim (English: ''Mannheim Eagles'', formerly Mannheimer ERC) is a professional ice hockey team of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, the highest-level ice hockey league in Germany. The team is based in Mannheim, a city in the northern par ...

. Despite the continued good showing of the team, the number of spectators remained low. Because of the expensive player contracts and the lack of sponsors, the Barons accumulated substantial debts. In the 2001–2002 season, the Barons placed first in the regular season, in spite of injuries plaguing the team. In the play-off semifinal, the Barons lost to the eventual champions, Kölner Haie. Although by this time the number of spectators had begun to increase slightly, the Anschutz Group decided to move the team to

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

for financial reasons on 3 June 2002.München Barons ziehen bald nach Hamburg um
unich Barons will soon be moving to Hamburg New Business magazine, 5 June 2002 (in German) From then, the Barons played as the

Hamburg Freezers The Hamburg Freezers were a professional men's ice hockey club from Hamburg, Germany that played in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. The club announced its withdrawal from the DEL and ceased operations on 24 May 2016 when Anschutz Entertainment Group, ...

in Hamburg in the

until 2016, when the Anschutz Group ceased operations due to financial reasons.

Standings

References

1999 establishments in Germany 2002 disestablishments in Germany Hamburg Freezers Ice hockey clubs established in 1999 Ice hockey clubs disestablished in 2002 Ice hockey teams in Bavaria Ice hockey teams in Germany Sport in Munich Anschutz Corporation {{Germany-sport-team-stub