Düsseldorf

Metro AG's money arrived at Düsseldorfer EG in 2002 because it was close to bankruptcy, and for a decade the team played under the name DEG Metro Stars rather than its own. The arrangement lapsed in 2012 and the old name came back, along with the financial uncertainty it had been meant to solve.

That was not the first time DEG had needed rescuing. A voluntary withdrawal from the top-flight DEL in 1998 sent the club into the second division, and it took until 2000 to fight back up. The pattern of near-collapse followed by recovery runs through much of the club's later history, set against the memory of a team that once dominated the German game: four straight championships from 1990 to 1993, then a fifth in 1996, a run of consecutive titles unmatched in the Bundesliga and DEL era. Earlier titles in 1967, 1972 and 1975 had already marked DEG as one of the country's leading sides before that streak began.

The club moved home in 2006, leaving the Eisstadion an der Brehmstraße for what is now the PSD Bank Dome. Brendan Shanahan spent a season in Düsseldorf in 1994, while the numbers of Chris Valentine, Peter-John Lee and Walter Köberle have been retired by the club.

None of that history carried DEG through the 2024/25 season, which ended in relegation to the DEL2. The club that once set the standard for consecutive German titles now has to work its way back up from the second tier.