Kassel

Kassel Huskies skate this season in the DEL2.

The team traces back to 1977, when it was founded as ESG Kassel. In 1997 Kassel reached the DEL final, losing out to Adler Mannheim. Titles have come more often a level or two down: the Oberliga in 2013 and 2014, the Regionalliga Hessen in 2011, the old 2. Bundesliga in 2008.

Among the players tied to those years, Manuel Klinge's number 9 hangs retired alongside a handful of others, including Sven Valenti's 19 and Michael Christ's 13 — the kind of small ceremony a club performs when it wants a name kept in the rafters rather than just in the record books.

Games against Löwen Frankfurt carry the weight of the Hessen derby, sharper than the meetings with Bad Nauheim, and both draw on a rivalry that has less to do with league position than with the state the two clubs share. Kassel play their home fixtures at the Eissporthalle, known under sponsorship as the NordhessenArena, where around 6,100 fans in blue and white fill a rink that has watched the club rise and drop between divisions more than once.