HC Lugano
| Hockey Club Lugano | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| City | Lugano, Switzerland |
| League |
NLA: 1999–present NDA: 1970–1972, 1981–1999 NDB: 1963–1970, 1972–1981 |
| Founded | 1941 |
| Home arena | Pista La Resega |
| Colors | |
| Owner(s) | Vicky Mantegazza |
| General manager | Roland Habisreutinger |
| Head coach | Greg Ireland |
| Captain | Alessandro Chiesa |
| Website | Official website |
| Franchise history | |
| 1941–present | Hockey Club 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 A and has won seven Swiss championships. The team is the ninth most attended team in Switzerland for the 2015-16 season with 5,783 spectators.
Officially founded on February 11, 1941, the HC Lugano celebrated its 60th year of life in the 2000–01 season.
Since the 1985-86 season, the club has won seven national titles, five play-off finals, reached the final round of the European Cup final twice, reached the Euroleague Top Four Final once, reached the Super Six 2007, a decisive action in the Spengler Cup and two third places in the Continental Cup Superfinal.
The HC Lugano "family" consists of Youth Sections, a Ladies Team, and HC Lugano-Ceresio. Their affiliate EHC Basel Sharks competes in the National League B.
The Hockey Club Lugano was founded in the course of the 1940–41 season but the club's actual setting-up takes place on February 11, 1941, electing as president Alfonso Weber. Seven years after its foundation, the team abandons the small lake of Muzzano and goes to the Loreto quarter. This change is certainly beneficial and is a good opportunity to make the hockey game gradually known in the neighbourhood. In Loreto, the first real games of puck on ice are played: the game of hockey starts getting a footing; however, the civic authorities keep considering Lugano as, basically, a football city. All the efforts of the president Luigi Bellasi come to nothing. In fact, the lack of political support causes the club's eviction from Loreto, too.
In 1955, the Lugano club plays a few games on what functioned as tennis courts in summer, i.e. the tennis courts of the Münger bakery in Paradiso thanks to Cuccio Viglezio and Guido Keller. Still in the course of 1955, Albino Mangili sets up the sport facility in Noranco: in the three years passed there, the Lugano club contends its first official championships and celebrates its first promotion to first division in 1956. The first artificial rink, which will be called "Resega", is inaugurated on December 1, 1957. The most important engagement experienced during the first years of the Resega was the then Pedrolini Cup that gives hospitality to European teams such as the Stockholm club, the Wembley Lions, the Paris club and the Milan Devils. The Resega's inaugural season coincides with the first professional players wearing the black-and-white jersey: Gene Miller, followed by the Chinese-Canadian Larry Kwong.
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Wikipedia