The Krefeld Pinguine have been relegated from the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) for the first time in their club history.

After a 6-1 loss at the Mannheimer Adler, the two-time champion mathematically has no chance of leaving the last place in the table.

After the defeat, however, the club made announcements that it wanted to defend itself legally against being downgraded to second division.

Marc Heinrich

sports editor.

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Sergey Savelyev, the managing director of the DEL founding member, said that a "competition distortion lawsuit" was in preparation.

Boris Blank, the assistant to the Russian head coach Igor Sacharkin, also expressed criticism: “In a Corona season like this, there must be no relegation.

In a normal season we don't have any problems with promotion and relegation.

It wasn't all sporty," said the former national player.

First DEL relegation since 2006

The people of Krefeld feel disadvantaged by the fact that opponents did not appear several times due to corona infections when the penguins could have played at their best.

After the Olympic break, when Krefeld was hit by bad luck with injuries, the program was concentrated due to many games to catch up.

40 of the 420 games in the DEL were rescheduled, eight could not be played.

Krefeld is the first DEL relegation since 2006, when the Kassel Huskies got it.

Since then, the league has been a closed system based on the American model, which only saw relegations when clubs withdrew from the first class for economic reasons and thus made room for newcomers.

In the summer of 2018, the majority of professional clubs voted in favor of a reform justified by the desire of the fans and envisaging a comeback of promotion and relegation from spring 2021.

Because of the pandemic, a twelve-month postponement has been decided in the meantime, and as an exception, a points quotient will determine the final placement in the table after the end of the main round.

Savelyev doubts the legality of the agreements and claims that his club was generally treated unfairly in the Corona crisis.

"It's about: Who has better connections to the state, to the health authorities?" Was his accusation, which he would like to bring before the DEL arbitration board and which aims to ensure that teams have unjustifiably paused the competition.

Gernot Tripcke, the managing director of the league, is calm about the request.

He was "relatively relaxed," he told the FAZ, "but I can't stop anyone from complaining."

However, his organization acts “within the framework of the statutes”.

Therefore, he sees "no great danger" that the Krefeld could complain about detours.

Tripcke also made it clear that the DEL would fulfill their duty of care when returning players who were infected with Corona.

"Without a doctor's decision" no one goes on the ice.

Most recently, the Wolfsburg team doctor Axel Gänsslen criticized the supposed cancellation of the so-called return-to-play protocol.

Tripcke emphasized that the professional association (VBG) had officially withdrawn the guidelines, which serve to help doctors, due to the changed pandemic situation.

The protocol itself and the decision-making power of the doctors would continue to exist: "As soon as a new guide from the VBG is available, we will of course refer to it again in our guidelines so that the team doctors can then take this into account in their decision-making," said Tripcke.

For the upcoming play-offs, he expressed the hope that all stadiums could be used "without capacity restrictions".

When wearing masks, visitors at the individual locations would have to adapt to different requirements.