Kloten introduces Canadians as new coach

class=”sc-3778e872-0 gWjAEa”>

EHC Kloten has found a new head coach.

Canadian Gerry Fleming (55) succeeds Jeff Tomlinson (52), who has to resign for health reasons, at the Zurich Unterländer.

Fleming, who signs a two-year contract, comes over from the DEL. There he was eliminated a few days ago with the Löwen Frankfurt in the pre-playoffs against Düsseldorf EG. That’s not the only parallel with his new team. Frankfurt also qualified for the pre-playoffs as a promoted team in the final qualifying round.

Eleven NHL games and many penalties

In his career as a player, Fleming mainly played in the North American ECHL and AHL from 1983 to 1998. In addition, eleven NHL games he played for the Montreal Canandiens are on his record. “No team will have a coach next season who was a stronger player than Fleming,” Kloten sports director Larry Mitchell said in the press release. He alludes to the 1184 penalty minutes that the 1.96 m tall Fleming collected in his career.

His previous positions as coach: Bakersfield Condors, Eisbären Berlin, with whom he won the championship in 2021, Iowa and Frankfurt. Switzerland is now the next stop. His assistants are Kimmo Rintanen, Saku Martikainen and Tim Bertsche. That had been known for a long time.

Colonel extends contract

Not only will Kloten present a new coach this Monday, there is more news. Patrick Obrist (30) extends his contract by one year and participates in a ninth season at Kloten.

In addition, Alexey Dostoinov, Flurin Randegger, Jesper Peltonen, Martin Ness, Arttu Ruotsalainen, Niki Altorfer and Eric Faille say goodbye to seven players whose contracts have expired. (sda/bir)

Source : Blick