SC Bern, 16-fold national ice hockey champion, trains on a GreenIce rink. Perfect for endurance training and shooting practice, our synthetic ice panels allow the pros to be on the ice year-round, 100% eco-friendly and independent of ambient temperatures.
The history of Sportclub Bern begins 89 years ago, when it was founded on 3 November 1930, beginning its first playing season in 1931. The team colors are black, yellow, and gold. It didn’t take long for it to gain a following, and even in its early years it counted a large audience. Today, SC Bern is famous for being the ice hockey team with the largest audience in Europe. Since 1967, the club’s home ground is the often sold out PostFinance Arena (formerly “Eisstadion Allmend”), which holds a capacity of 17’031 seats.
Before SC Bern was founded, there were several ice hockey teams in Bern: the Berner Schlittschuh-Club (ca. 1893), Hockey Club Bern (winner of national championships 1916-1918) and the Ice Fellows in the 1920s. SC Bern considers all of these teams to be their “ancestors”.
Its first home ground was on Kirchenfeldstrasse 70, which later became a tennis facility.
Pioneers of SC Bern include Fred Müller, Paul Gerber, José Barrot, Otto Heller, Kurt Kessi, Heini Dallmeier, and Kurt Hauser.
In 1933, SC Bern moved to a new ice rink named Ka-De-We. The first game at their new home took place on 3 December of the same year against the Zürcher SC. The first home win at Ka-De-We was accomplished on 8 January 1934 (6:2) against the ice hockey team of the University of Cambridge.
In 1937, SC Bern started playing in the newly founded Nationalliga A, the highest Swiss ice hockey league.
After a brief dip down into Nationalliga B, SCB reached their first national championship win in the season of 1958/59, winning 5:4 against HC Davos under their coach Ernst “Aeschi” Wenger.
In 1967, SC Bern moved to a new home ground once more, this time to the newly built Allmend stadium (PostFinance Arena since 2007), where the club would stay for good.
Since then, the team had several dips into Nationalliga B, coming back with a bang each time, often winning the national championships — three times under coach Bill Gilligan between 1989 and 1992. The tenth title was won in 1997 under head coach Bryan Lefley.
In the spring of 2019, SC Bern won the national championships for the 16th time, also counting the largest audience in European ice hockey for the 18th time in a row (16’290 spectators). It remains the most popular ice hockey team in Europe.
