Hockey Today Magazine
Ehrenliga’s Finest
The Trade
Ehrenliga’s Finest
The Trade
Hockey Today’s ‘Ehrenliga’s Finest’ section looks back on the long history of hockey in Siovanija & Teusland, focusing on the players, teams, moments and games that have contributed to the culture of the game in our country. Today, we take a look at a moment that forever changed the history of hockey in this country. A trade so big it is simply known as ‘The Trade’. We’re talking about the deal that sent Anatol Weisz from the Kaiserhaven Knights to the Stelburg Kaisers.
The stereotypical quote about people from Siovanija & Teusland is that they are born with skates already strapped on, ready to start playing hockey. Obviously, it’s not really true - but you have to wonder if somehow it really was the case for Anatol Weisz. Born in the small town of Laab im Walde, about a half hour south of Stelburg, Weisz started skating at the young age of two, on a backyard rink built for him by his father, Waldemar. Waldemar loved hockey, and himself had reached the Teus Major Junior Hockey League level, and wanted his son to grow up to enjoy the game as well.
From a young age, it instantly became clear that Anatol Weisz was someone to watch. From 6 years old, he was playing on a team for 10 year olds - and often outperformed the older kids. At age 10, he scored 366 goals in one season. He was a great prodigy, with interviews in newspapers and his highlights seen on television across the country. The great attention made Weisz a target as well, however: he was booed in away arenas across the country, sometimes even by jealous parents who didn’t like him taking away attention from their kids on his own team.
By the time he reached age 16, Weisz was by far the biggest hockey prodigy in the country, having dominated at every single level of the game up to that point. At that time, the TMJHL had a rule allowing clubs to protect the rights to one local-born player. As Weisz had played minor hockey in Stelburg, he was selected by the Stelburg Edelweiss in the TMJHL draft. Weisz played two seasons with the Edelweiss, scoring 183 points in his first season and 191 the next. That made him the most coveted prospect in the history of the Ehrenliga, heading into his draft year.
At the time, the Ehrenliga was still the 12 team league from after the first expansion, but things were about to change. The Republic Hockey League was on its last legs, however, it was eager to make one last desperate ploy. Teufelsberg Devils owner Gunter Bach convinced the other owners that if they could sign Weisz, the league could survive. And so, after pooling the league’s wealth, a contract was offered to Weisz that was worth over double the standard Ehrenliga rookie contract.
It was widely expected Weisz would accept the contract. His father, however, encouraged him to go to the Ehrenliga, as he figured that the RHL was in financial and structural difficulty. At a press conference a week after the offer, Weisz declined the offer, stating he wanted to enter the Ehrenliga draft and play “In the same league as my hockey heroes, like Wolf Bleich, and the league I grew up watching.” His words would serve as basically the death knell of the RHL: Gunter Bach and a few other owners began to explore the possibility of a merger with the Ehrenliga. Two weeks later, Anatol Weisz was selected first overall in the Ehrenliga draft by the Kaiserhaven Knights.
Kaiserhaven, on the southeast coast of Teusland, was a major city, and had been awarded an expansion team in the expansion from 6 to 12 teams. The Knights, however, hadn’t had too much success, lagging behind their expansion cousins. They were beginning to assemble a great pool of young prospects - C Richard Ganz, D Horst Weider and G Arnold Leiner. They were very good that first year in the league, finishing 3rd in the Teus Division as Weisz won the Rookie of the Year Trophy. Weisz had also finished third overall in scoring, as the Knights upset Eisbaren Stelburg in the first round before losing in the Teus Division final to the Stelburg Kaisers. Weisz selected his famous jersey #99 at this time: he’d always worn #9 in junior, in honour of Wolf Bleich, but the number was already taken by C Heinrich Hiller. So, #99 was born.
The Knights went out that offseason and acquired D Elmo Stieler, a big, tough veteran defenceman who had been integral to Seelowe Marlesee’s two Cup titles a few years prior. He would serve as a ‘bodyguard’ player for Weisz, at a time when the league was very much still focused on heavy hitting, fighting, and targeting stars. Stieler and Horst Weider were important members of the group.
Weisz’s second season with the Knights was an incredibly productive one for him, as he led the league in point scoring. The Knights won the Teus Division and beat the Felsenkirchen Jets (3-1) and Stelburg Kaisers (4-2) to reach the Strauss Cup Final. There, however, they ran into an experienced Rudar Trkev team who had won the Cup the year before. Trkev would win the series 4-1, and Weisz was held pointless in 3 of 5 games in the series. Weisz would later claim that it was while walking out of the arena after that game 5 and seeing the Trkev players being stitched up and attended to by medical staff while celebrating with the Cup that he understood what it would take to win.
The next year, then, Weisz and the Knights were back with a vengeance. Kaiserhaven cruised through the season - which was the first of the 18 team Ehrenliga, after the merger with the RHL went through. The Knights finished first overall in the league, Weisz was again league MVP, and the Knights were in the playoffs. In the first round they would defeat Kapitala Borograd in four straight games, before meeting Eisbaren Stelburg. While Stelburg would win the first game of the series, the Knights fought back to win it in 6 games. In the final, they again faced the Rudar Trkev side that had defeated them the year before.
This time, however, the Trkev team was a little too beaten up from the past two years of Cup wins. One year older, they’d lost a bit of speed. And the Knights were hungry for their first championship. Each side put up the fight of their lives, but in the decisive game 6, Anatol Weisz had 4 points to secure the Strauss Cup.
The next season would be the best of Weisz’s career, as he put up 77 goals, an Ehrenliga record that still stands, and also had 192 points on the year. That point marker stands as the second-highest all time to this day, and was achieved in only 68 games. It wasn’t just Weisz that had such a great year: RW Marcel Erlbaum had 40 goals, C Richard Ganz also had 125 points, and Horst Weider was the Stanislav Slezak Trophy winner as defenceman of the year. It was an unbelievable year for the player and his club, and they marched again to the Strauss Cup title, beating Eisbaren Stelburg in 5 games to capture a second straight championship. Another title would follow the following year. Weisz ‘only’ had 157 points as the Knights defeated Pinguine Ternau, Eisbaren Stelburg and the Felsenkirchen Jets en route to the Strauss Cup title. Three in a row now for the Knights, and they were showing no signs of stopping.
Weisz was back in top form next season with 178 points in the year as the Knights finished first place again for the fourth year in a row. They once again marched with ease through the first two rounds of the playoffs: Energija Chernovets and Olympia Borograd were dispatched in 5 games each. That set up a Strauss Cup Final series against the Stelburg Kaisers. The Kaisers seemed to have the game plan to deal with Weisz, and Kaisers C Artur Stoltenberg played excellent as a shutdown center. Stelburg would win the series in 7 games, stopping the Knights dynasty in its tracks and winning the historic club’s first Cup in 15 years.
The next season, Weisz and the Knights were once again a team on a mission. They were matched in that ambition, however, by Dieter Grasshoff and Eisbaren Stelburg. Eisbaren finished first in the league, and many made them favourites to finally win the Strauss Cup. Kaiserhaven were second, and the Stelburg Kaisers third. Kaiserhaven won their first round against the Felsenkirchen Jets, then exercised their demons against the Kaisers. The final series matched up Eisbaren Stelburg and the Knights, and after years of bad blood between the teams, it was destined to go the distance. Anatol Weisz would play his greatest game in a Knights jersey in game 7, with 3 points in a 4-3 comeback win. It would be the last game he ever played for the Kaiserhaven Knights.
One summer morning after that Cup win in season 66, hockey fans across the country would wake up to the shock of a lifetime. It was one of those moments were it didn’t matter what channel you turned to, they were all covering it. The RBC News desk perhaps summed it up best:
”We have shocking breaking news this morning. Anatol Weisz, the 4-time Strauss Cup winner, 5-time league MVP, he’s just been traded. The Kaiserhaven Knights have traded him, D Elmo Stieler and RW Daniel Fink to the Stelburg Kaisers. The Kaisers are sending back RW Matthias Heun, D Alois Gorder, prospect LW Kasper Brandt, the Kaisers’ next 3 first-round picks, and T15 million in cash. It’s the biggest trade ever made in the history of the Ehrenliga. We’ll continue to bring you all the updates from this story.”
Immediately, questions began to be asked. Firstly: why? The Knights had won 4 of the last 5 Strauss Cup titles. They had a squad good enough to compete and win again and again. Heun, Gorder and Brandt were decent players, but nowhere near as good as Weisz. Knights captain Richard Ganz reportedly called the Knights’ GM Arno Rosen over 5 times that morning, questioning why Weisz was traded. Again and again, the rumours began to circulate about the T15 million that had been sent from the Kaisers to the Knights.
At noon, RBC News cut away from coverage to go straight to Stelburg, where Anatol Weisz was holding a press conference at the Stelburg Eispalast. Flanking him were Kaisers coach Lothar Ganzer and GM Marvin Spiegler. Weisz was asked numerous questions about the trade, how he felt about joining his new team, and possible reasons for the trade. When asked if there was any message he had to the fans across the country shocked by this day, Weisz became emotional and could not answer. The image of Weisz’s tears was on the front page of every single newspaper in the country.
Fans across the country immediately wanted to know: why did the Kaiserhaven Knights trade by far the best player in the league for, with respect, spare parts? Theories immediately began to be crafted amongst the fanbase, most centering on Knights owner Heinz Baumeister. Baumeister had purchased the Knights in season 55, and promised that he would spend money to keep the team competitive. As with so many rich people in Kaiserhaven’s circles, he made his fortune off of shipping. In the first few years of his ownership, Baumeister did live up to the promise.
Once the club had acquired Weisz and the great core around him, Baumeister had always been willing to pay them their worth and bring in good complimentary pieces around them to ensure the team’s success. He had been beloved by fans, and seemed to have a great relationship with the players. Suddenly, now, Baumeister was the villain. What had happened?
Within a few weeks, articles and stories began to try and put the pieces together. It was discovered that after the Cup win in season 64, Baumeister had made an offer to St. Jakob Saints owner Marius Vonhof. The two clubs would trade their entire franchises - every single player and staff member. It would have been unprecedented. The trade reportedly fell through when the Ehrenliga’s office caught wind of the rumoured deal and told the clubs it would not be allowed. The Saints, at the time basement-dwellers despite their proud history, ran on a much smaller budget than the Knights. The reasoning was clear: Baumeister wanted to cut costs.
In the business world, too, word started leaking out about what was going on behind the scenes. The rumour was that Baumeister’s company, BauSchiffe, had been in serious debt with various mafia groups who had control of port cities in Siovanija, where many of BauSchiffe’s business was done. There was a rumour that the mafia had demanded a T15 million payment from the Baumeister himself - the source, therefore, of the cash the Kaisers had sent back to the Knights. Rumour had it that the Kaiserhaven Constabulary was going to open an investigation into the deal.
More and more other fringe conspiracy theories started to gain traction. One theory stated that the Ehrenliga itself had forced the trade. The Kaisers, as the oldest and most successful club in the league, make a ton of money for the Ehrenliga, and if they had the game’s best player in their lineup, that money would go through the roof. This thinking is easily debunked, however, as the Ehrenliga and the Kaisers have never had any trouble making money. Furthermore, the Ehrenliga’s President of the day, Andrej Stepan, was from Borograd, and very unlikely to fix the league so that the Stelburg Kaisers of all teams would win it.
Another theory held that Weisz’s wife, Emilie, had wanted the move to further her career as an actress. When Weisz and Emilie had been married just after his first Cup win, it was called by the media a ‘royal wedding,’ and millions of people tuned in to watch the marriage. Emilie, however, was from Stelburg, and some fans suggested she may have wanted the move to be closer to her home and career. Finally, it had always been known that Anatol Weisz grew up as a Stelburg Kaisers fan - photos of him wearing the black-gold jersey as a kid had circulated throughout his career. Some suggested that Weisz himself demanded the trade.
There were to be no answers in that summer after season 66. There was only the option to look ahead to the next season. The Kaiserhaven Knights experienced a drastic decay in team morale, as none of the core group felt confident in the direction of the team after the trade. They finished 4th in the league, still, while the stacked Stelburg Kaisers team finished first. Both teams would win their first round series, before taking different paths through the second round. The Kaisers would beat Olympia Borograd, who had upset Seelowe Marlesee in that first round. On the other side, Eisbaren Stelburg would finally defeat the Knights to advance to the Strauss Cup Final.
Eisbaren, however, wouldn’t be much of a match for their Stelburg rivals. The Kaisers were dominant: Weisz scored two or more points in all 5 games of the series, as he gave Oskar Kirsche nightmares yet again in the playoffs. For the 5th time in his career, Anatol Weisz lifted the Strauss Cup.
In the years to follow, there would be more fall-out from The Trade. 7 years to the day, Heinz Baumeister was arrested on charges of tax fraud. It was discovered that he had been lying about BauSchiffe’s numbers for several years, dating back to about season 63 of the Ehrenliga. No coincidence, then, that he was trying to cut costs on the hockey side of things - his business was suffering. The T15 million was a last-ditch attempt to keep his company above water, which had worked at the time. The Stelburg Kaisers had been told the payment was to make up for the revenue difference that would affect the Knights for losing Weisz - and for the richest team in the country, it was a drop in the bucket to have the chance to acquire a player like Weisz. Baumeister would eventually be sentenced to 10 years in prison, and died shortly after his release.
What about the other pieces involved in the deal? Of the players heading to the Knights, Alois Gorder was the most successful. He would play another 11 seasons in the Ehrenliga, 7 with the Knights, and was a solid top 4 defenceman for most of his time with the club. Matthias Heun spent some time on the third line before being traded to the St. Jakob Saints two years after The Trade. Kasper Brandt never played an Ehrenliga game, spending his career in the minors. The three first round draft picks turned into LW Jan Kiefer, C Olaf Pilz and C Nico Faulstich. Kiefer never reached the Ehrenliga. Pilz would become a solid second line centre for the Knights during his career, eventually winding his career down with the Kaisers. Nico Faulstich was traded in another deal a few years after being drafted by the Knights, and while he had a cup of coffee in the Ehrenliga, never reached the heights many expected of him.
Elmo Stieler played that one last year with the Kaisers, capturing the Strauss Cup title again. It was the 7th Cup of his career, the record amongst players in the post-expansion era. Stieler’s great career saw him involved in several of the most important moments of the Ehrenliga’s history: the expansion period, the Mean Marlesee Machine, the Knights dynasty, and The Trade. The gritty defenceman was inducted into the National Hockey Hall of Fame a few years after retirement, and would go on to become the owner of his hometown Lensbruck Muskies of the TMJHL. Daniel Fink was a serviceable fourth line winger for the Kaisers during that Cup run, a good penalty-killer as well, before he walked in free agency and joined the Felsenkirchen Jets. Fink would play 5 more years in the Ehrenliga before calling it a day, he won 3 Strauss Cups in his career.
Then there’s the centrepiece. Anatol Weisz. The man whose trade shocked a nation. He would go on to win only 1 more Strauss Cup in his career: in season 75, with the Kaisers. His ridiculous dominance of the Ehrenliga would continue, but there would be some heartbreak: a Strauss Cup Final loss to hated rivals Olympia Borograd in season 68, or a finals loss to Eisbaren Stelburg in season 73. By the time of the win in season 75, however, there was a new kid on the block: Radoslav Kucar, the Olympia Borograd prospect who would break Weisz’s single-season point total as he brought 2 Cups back to Borograd. Weisz wanted to wind down his career somewhere else, away from the spotlight of the Kaisers. After season 76, he signed his final contract with Rudar Trkev for two seasons. The first year was decent, as the club reached the second round of the playoffs. In his final season, however, Trkev were out of playoff contention. At his final game in Kaiserhaven, Weisz was received with a 25-minute ovation from the home crowd. At the Stelburg Eispalast, too, the Kaisers fans greeted him with an ovation of their own. His #99 was retired by all three clubs he played for, and statues were built of him in Kaiserhaven and Stelburg. In this country, the #99 is unofficially retired at every level, as is #17 in honour of Kucar.
Weisz would finish his career with 1183 games played, 773 career goals and 2243 career points. He is the Ehrenliga’s all time record holder in goals, assists (1470) and points. He also hold a variety of other records, including most goals in 1 season (77). He won the league’s MVP award 9 times, still a record, and was its leading point scorer 10 times. Other trophies included the Rookie of the Year Trophy, and 3 Playoff MVP trophies. He was an all-star all but 1 season of his career. Anatol Weisz is widely regarded as the greatest player to ever play hockey in our country.
In the 36 seasons since The Trade, the Stelburg Kaisers have won 5 Strauss Cups. The Kaiserhaven Knights, meanwhile, have won 0. The Knights have never even been back to the Strauss Cup Final. Many fans have wondered if The Trade serves as a curse for the club, an eternal dark shadow hanging over it.
Nothing like The Trade had been seen in Siovanija & Teusland’s hockey scene before. Nothing like it has come since. It was a moment in time that marked a change in era, a change in the game, and is considered to be the introduction of the ‘modern’ age of the Ehrenliga. No matter what the true reasons behind the trade were, or the results of it for both teams, it was one of the biggest events in Ehrenliga history.
’The Trade’ - Summary
Stelburg Kaisers Acquire:
C Anatol Weisz (25y/o)
D Elmo Stieler (35y/o)
RW Daniel Fink (29y/o)
Kaiserhaven Knights Acquire:
RW Matthias Heun (26y/o)
D Alois Gorder (23y/o)
LW Kasper Brandt (19y/o)
Season 67 1st Round Pick (LW Jan Kiefer)
Season 68 1st Round Pick (C Olaf Pilz)
Season 69 1st Round Pick (C Nico Faultisch)
T15 million cash
World Cup of Hockey Matchday 10
Siovanija & Teusland vs Kayangan
@ Stelburg Eispalast, Stelburg, Teusland
Scoring Summary
First Period
No scoring
Second Period
5:55: Goldhorns goal scored by Volen Atanasov, assisted by Mihelic (1-0)
12:07: Kayangan goal scored by Izekel Hong, assisted by Rebana (1-1)
18:50: Kayangan goal scored by Jengking Raja, assisted by P. Hong (1-2)
Third Period
10:42: Goldhorns goal scored by Veselin Filipov, assisted by Lasker, Knejz (2-2)
End of Game: Siovanija & Teusland 2-2 Kayangan
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