Leipzig

Icefighters Leipzig go into the season in the Oberliga Nord. There is little left in the record books to fall back on: the honours belong to an earlier version of the club.

The line runs back to a club founded on 7 December 1998, which in 2003 took the name Blue Lions Leipzig and picked up blue and yellow colours. Those years produced what success the club can point to — Regionalliga titles in 2006/07 and 2009/10 and the Saxony Cup in 2006/07 — but they also produced three separate brushes with insolvency. The first, in 2005, cost the club its place in the Oberliga. The second, in 2009, forced a withdrawal from the playoffs mid-run. The third, in April 2010, ended the Blue Lions altogether. What restarted the following season under Leipziger Eissport-Club carried a new name, Icefighters.

The years after the restart were unsettled in a different way. The club left the Alte Messe Eisarena in 2012 and spent six seasons playing outdoors at the Zelt in Taucha, before returning to the city centre in 2018 to the Nordhalle at the Kohlrabizirkus, also called the Anona Icedome, which holds 2,500.

Of the players who came through the club, Lars Müller is the one who went furthest, taking his game into the DEL for 120 appearances with the Iserlohn Roosters between 2000 and 2002 before his path led back to Leipzig. Most of what followed him wore the Icefighters jersey without ever getting that far.