With Arno Nussbaumer and Daniel Neumann, EVZ equips two more players from its own youth with National League contracts.
Arno Nussbaumer is already completing his 6th season in the EVZ organization and currently plays for the EVZ Academy in the Swiss League. In 2018, the defender started his training in “The Hockey Academy”, which he will complete in the summer of 2022, and made his debut in the 1st team last March at the age of 18, with six more games to follow. Now the 180cm tall and 75kg Nussbaumer signed his first professional contract until 2024, shortly before he left for the Junior World Cup in Canada with the U20 national team.
His EVZ Academy teammate Daniel Neumann does the same: the 19-year-old forward from Freiburg im Breisgau (GER) moved from EHC Basel to the Zug U20-Elit in 2019 and will be part of the EVZ 1st team in the 2022/23 season with a one-year contract. Neumann is still mainly in action for the EVZ Academy and the U20-Elit, but already came to four NL games in the current season, when Jan Kovar and Anton Lander respectively were out due to injury. At the end of this season, the German will receive the Swiss license and thus no longer burden the foreigner quota of the EVZ.
“Arno and Daniel have developed steadily over the past few years and have grown into top performers in the EVZ Academy,” said General Manager Reto Kläy. “In their first appearances in the National League, they have shown that they have the potential to perform at this level as well.”
With Arno Nussbaumer and Daniel Neumann, players number nine and ten are in the Zug squad for the 2022/23 season, who have made the direct jump from the EVZ junior team to the 1st team and have played continuously for the ice sports club ever since. Already under contract are Lino Martschini (537 NL appearances for the EVZ, contract until 2023), Yannick Zehnder (218, 2023), Livio Stadler (206, 2025), Sven Leuenberger (192, 2024), Nico Gross (82, 2024), Dario Allenspach (43, 2024), Luca Hollenstein (34, 2024) and Dario Wüthrich (32, 2023).
“There are still some players in the EVZ Academy and in our U20-Elit who are pushing themselves for the 1st team, but unfortunately there won’t always be room for all of them,” Kläy explains. “We always strive to bring athletes to the top – be it at the EVZ or at another National League or Swiss League club.” The fact that there are more players with potential than free spots at the EVZ is a positive thing for the general manager: “It shows that we’re doing a lot of things right in training!”
