Kaltern's captain Bastian Andergassen with the championship trophy. © Italia.Hockey

Comment | Not only won the title

SV Kaltern converted its first match puck in the Italian Hockey League (IHL) final on Thursday evening, winning the fifth championship in the club's history. A commentary by Deputy Editor-in-Chief Günther Heidegger.

11 April 2025

By: günther.heidegger

It's an incredible feeling. A cocktail of hormones that would make even a biology teacher give up at some point: adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin... or whatever the other names for those happy-makers are.

In any case, it's simply awesome to lift the championship trophy at the end of a long season. The Kaltern ice hockey players savored this moment to the fullest yesterday. With the fourth win in the final series against Aosta, the game was in the bag.

And they did it against a deluxe mercenary squad, thrown together like a gold-framed Panini album. But Kaltern did it! Not only did they win the title, but they also salvaged the honor of South Tyrolean ice hockey, after things hadn't quite gone their way for the local teams in the leagues above this year. And the "Pikes" demonstrated one more thing: Even in South Tyrol's supposedly small clubs, people aren't just sweating, they're also developing talents, characters, real ice hockey players. And that's a good feeling, too.