EC KAC
| Klagenfurt AC | |
|---|---|
 | |
| City | Klagenfurt, Austria |
| League | Austrian Hockey League |
| Founded | 1909 |
| Home arena | Stadthalle Klagenfurt (5,500) |
| Colors | |
| General manager |
 Oliver Pilloni |
| Head coach |
 Christian Weber |
| Championships | |
| Playoff championships | 32 (1934 1935 1952 1955 1960 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1976 1977 1979 1980 1985 1986 1987 1988 1991 2000 2001 2004 2009 2013 2019 2021) |
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EC KAC (Klagenfurter Athletiksport-Club) is a professional ice hockey team in the Austrian Hockey League. The team plays their home games in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Austria at Stadthalle Klagenfurt. EC KAC has won the most Austrian ice hockey Championships, a total of 30 times including 11 consecutive titles from 1964 to 1974, and four consecutive from 1985 to 1988. Most recently they won it in 2021.
History
The Klagenfurt Athletic Sports Club was founded on 18 September 1909 as an association.[1] In 1919 the first attempts to establish an ice hockey team were trialled with an initial two-year apprenticeship from 1923 to 1925, before hockey was established as a full-fledged association in 1926.[2] They applied for membership to the Austrian Ice Hockey Federation (OEHV) and were accepted as a provisional member in December 1926, before receiving full membership on April 7, 1927.
From 1927 to 1932, KAC took part exclusively in friendly matches. With the creation of the Provincial Championship for the 1932-33 season, the club joined the 1. Klasse of the competition. They won the league in 1934 and went on to claim the Austrian Championship with a 2-1 victory over EK Engelmann Wien. KAC repeated as Austrian champions in 1935.
The Second World War interrupted play abruptly and post-war it took a long time to get the league back functioning properly. However, many stars from the KAC's first league title success could again be counted to be the nucleus and further accelerated the rise of EC KAC well into the 1950s.
Between 1952 and 1960, KAC managed three further League titles, in a period in which Innsbruck EV were prominent in the Austrian Championship. With games still played outdoors and susceptible to inclement weather, on November 22, 1959, the Stadthalle Klagenfurt complex opened, which after several modifications is still in use today as the venue of EC KAC.
At the turn of the 1960s with the influx of influential players such as Dieter Kalt Snr and Sepp Puschnig, KAC started the seed in dominating the Austrian Championship from 1964 to 1980, in which the title went fifteen times to Klagenfurt. The only competitor in that time was ATSE Graz, which broke up title championships in 1975 and 1978.
During this time, the EC KAC also partook in several European Cups. They first played in the 1965–66 season, and in the following 1966–67 season, the team reached the semi-finals and had to compete, as in the following season, against ZLK Brno. In the 1969–70 season, EC KAC played as beaten finalists against HC CSKA Moscow. Overall, EC KAC participated nineteen times in the tournament, only two participations fewer than the record holder CSKA Moscow.
References
External links
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