Biel

Biel/Bienne sits on the language border between French and German-speaking Switzerland, and its hockey club has carried both halves of the city's name since 1939. EHC Biel spent the club's early decades chasing the top of the Swiss game and caught it in the late 1970s and early 1980s, taking the national title in 1978, 1981 and 1983 — a run that still anchors the club's identity in the Seeland region, where supporters go by the same name, Seeländer.

What followed was harder. A major patron, Willy Gassmann, withdrew his backing in the mid-1990s, and the club dropped into the second division in 1995. It stayed there for thirteen years, working its way back up through four straight second-tier championships between 2004 and 2008, then closing out the job by beating EHC Basel in the promotion series that autumn.

The 2012–13 NHL lockout brought an unlikely season: Patrick Kane and Tyler Seguin turned out for Biel alongside a sixteen-year-old Danish forward, Nikolaj Ehlers, making his top-flight debut in that same squad. Reto Berra, the club's goaltender at the time, was named the league's best at his position that year before moving on to a career in North America.

Biel came closest to reclaiming the championship in 2023, finishing runners-up in the National League final — and one that sharpened the club's long-standing rivalries with SC Bern and, closer to home, SCL Tigers. The team has played since 2015 at the Tissot Arena, and its 6,521 seats now carry the red and yellow through the Seeland's winters.