On Tuesday evening, various stones should have fallen from various hearts in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL).
Officially, the league office is of course neutral, but it doesn't take much imagination to guess how the result from Cologne was received there.
The Haie won 4:2 against Krefeld, the second win in a row, through which the Cologne team should have prevented relegation.
A few days earlier, they had fallen to second from bottom thanks to a full-blown losing streak.
And if it had continued like this, the DEL would have threatened the GAU: the relegation of a heavyweight.
Eight-time champion, largest hall, spectator croesus.
A “Winter Game” is also planned for next season, when the Haie are to play Mannheim in front of 50,000 fans in the Cologne football stadium.
Which is only possible if they still belong to the DEL.
These worries are now off the table, but by no means all.
"It's difficult, we thought it would ease up over time, also because of the new rules, that if you're vaccinated or have recovered, you no longer automatically have to go into contact quarantine," says Gernot Tripcke, but "despite relatively fewer corona cases" this happens again and again.
"Whole teams for sometimes ten days, it's crazy," says the DEL boss, whose league had to cancel nine of their 14 games over the weekend, and five teams were in quarantine.
You can't catch up on everything
The table looks accordingly.
Cologne has 50 of the 56 main round games behind it, others like Munich or Krefeld only 44, Augsburg even only 41. The DEL has tried a lot: a vaccination campaign among the players, the test procedure has been tightened, the Olympic break has been canceled, the main round has been extended by a week , some teams even agreed to play twice within 24 hours.
But everything will not be able to be made up for until the play-off start on April 5th.
"As of now, there are almost ten games, and there could be more," says Tripcke.
It hurts in a league where money is mainly made on matchdays, "but with a total of 420 games it's still okay".
But what happens if it continues like this in the playoffs?
Theoretically, someone who wins several times without a fight because the opponents are in quarantine can become a champion.
What is the value of the title?
The consequences in the table cellar could be far more dramatic.
This season, for the first time since 2006, there has been a sporting relegation, the last of the main round has to go down.
There has been resistance to this for months.
A season in which teams sometimes cannot compete at all, sometimes only with an emergency squad, is not fair in terms of sport, say the critics.
As a precaution, the table is calculated according to the points average per game, but questions remain: Would it be fair if one missed the games against the four top teams, but four against relegation candidates in another?
Or what if a team needs a win to remain in the league on the last day of the game, but the game is canceled?
Sergey Saveljev, managing director at bottom of the table Krefeld, indicated in Magenta Sport that legal action could then be taken.
Another topic: Does one or the other even find it convenient to be in quarantine on some days?
If it's against the leaders of the table or if you have several cases, but do not fall short of the required team strength of one goalkeeper and ten field players?
Who has to be in quarantine is not decided centrally, but by the local health department.
Is everything going right there?
Wolfgang Gastner, managing director in Nuremberg, at least left room for speculation when he explained to the "Nürnberger Nachrichten" why, unlike others, his Ice Tigers had to go onto the ice several times: "We don't have a direct and directing line to one in Nuremberg Office.” Tripcke did not want to comment on that, only says: “We check the test results and the quarantine orders, but we do not interfere in medical decisions.” So it goes on like this for now.
And there is some hope: As of now, 13 of the 14 DEL games are taking place this weekend.