Nürnberg Ice Tigers

Patrick Reimer scored 489 points in an Ice Tigers jersey, more than anyone else who has worn it, since the team he played for has never actually won a German title. The Ice Tigers reached the Deutsche Eishockey Liga final twice, in 1999 and again in 2007, and lost both times to Adler Mannheim.

What the club is known for instead is not winning but not disappearing. Twice, in 1997 and in 2009, it came close to going under, and the second crisis ended only when a group of investors led by the jeweller Thomas Sabo stepped in to save it from insolvency. That episode is why supporters still call the team the Come-Back Kids, and why the club carried Sabo's name, and before that the name of the sponsor Sinupret, through more than a decade before reverting to Nürnberg Ice Tigers in 2020.

The rivalry that matters most is with ERC Ingolstadt , played out as the Upper Bavarian-Franconian Derby, though Adler Mannheim carries its own weight given the two lost finals.

None of it started with the Ice Tigers name at all. In 1980, a non-profit association called EHC 80 Nürnberg was formed, and it was this club that won the Oberliga South twice in the mid-1980s and the 2. Bundesliga South in 1991, well before the professional side split off in 1995 and joined the newly created DEL as the Ice Tigers.