They want to take off like Nino Niederreiter. The 24-year-old once only knew the NHL from the Playstation. As an almost 17-year-old, he ventured to Portland in 2009 to play in the WHL junior league. He got to know new aspects of ice hockey in the process. He practiced deflecting the puck in drills during training. After a year in the USA, the Chur native was selected as number 5 in the draft, in which the rights to the best talents are divided up among the NHL teams every year. Niederreiter has now played over 300 NHL games and is earning 2.6 million francs this season with the Minnesota Wild.
But not everyone ends up like Niederreiter, Yannick Weber (Nashville), Luca Sbisa, Sven Bärtschi (both Vancouver), Sven Andrighetto (Montreal), Mirco Müller or Timo Meier (both San Jose) via the junior leagues WHL, OHL and QMJHL in field hockey's land of milk and honey. The majority experience disappointment at the draft.
Those rejected nevertheless benefit - from their experiences
However, this is not the end of the story. With the experience they have gained in another ice hockey world, they are often ideally equipped to launch their career in Switzerland. Some of them left as boys, returned a year or two later as men and became top performers in the NLA. Take 23-year-old Lino Martschini, for example. Only 1.67 meters tall, the Lucerne native played two years with the Peterborough Petes in the OHL. In his first season back with EV Zug, he scored 17 goals. And last season he scored 26 times, making him the league's top scorer.
In Canada, where the game is much more physical due to the smaller rinks, he not only discovered how to hold his own as a small, slender player and honed his shooting technique, but also met his girlfriend.
Like Martschini, Alessio Bertaggia (Lugano), Fabrice Herzog, Pius Suter (both ZSC Lions), Yannick Rathgeb (Fribourg), Kay Schweri (Servette), Dario Meyer (Bern), Jason Fuchs (Ambri) and Vincent Praplan (Kloten) have also recently benefited from their stay in Canada. The latter played one year with North Bay Battalion. He is now a regular goal scorer in Kloten.
"On the one hand, I wasn't ready for the NLA yet. On the other hand, another year with the juniors wouldn't have done me much good," says Praplan about his move to North Bay. "Today I regret not making the jump a year earlier. A second year would have been good for me. It just takes time to get used to the conditions."
The 22-year-old is convinced that the year abroad has been extremely beneficial for him, both as a sportsman and as a person. "I didn't think for a second about going back home. But I still missed my family and friends. Especially when things weren't going so well or something was bothering you. It's not the same whether you're talking to someone on the phone or that person is standing right in front of you," says the man from Valais. "For the first time ever, I was on my own. That takes you further."
For Edgar Salis, Head of Sport at the ZSC Lions, Switzerland's biggest talent factory, the jump to the North American junior leagues is just one of several training paths. "For some it helps, for others it destroys them. It certainly helped Pius Suter, for example, when you see how he behaves in duels and along the boards," he says.
The ice hockey association has mixed feelings about this approach. On the one hand, they can see that players are developing magnificently and making progress, especially in areas that are not traditionally among Switzerland's strengths, such as speed, assertiveness and going for goal. On the other hand, Switzerland could be missing four players for the first time at the next U18 World Cup due to their overseas commitments, which could lead to relegation. This is because the biggest talents Nico Hischier (from Bern to Halifax), Axel Simic (from Lausanne to Blainville-Boisbriand), Simon Le Coultre (from Lausanne to Moncton) and Philipp Kurashev (from the ZSC Lions to Quebec) have crossed the Atlantic.
KAY SCHWERI
DARIO MEYER