Armed Bears Approach Record Start … Lindwyrms Regress … Winemakers Stomp Wheaters
Observations & Opinions / Week Twelve
From Harold Abrahams – Special Correspondent for TSS
Fifty weeks ago, this correspondent traveled to Bern to watch the Armed Bears battle the Tyrol-leading Cortina Riflers to an honorable 20-20 tie in a foot of snow in a match I rated as one of the ten finest contests I had seen in two decades of observing this finest of sports. Now, almost a year later, where could I spend my Saturday except in this same famed meadow, as the Bears welcomed the Edelweiss of Salzburg in an always anticipated battle.
Now, consider the elements that added further to this match. A Swiss team versus an Austrian team always generates energy. When the fifth-oldest team in the sport (as the 3 Oktober 1872 patch on their jersey proclaims) – and the team with the greatest number of Tyrol Cups ever (24) – faces the team with the third-highest number ever (the Bears’ 11), the game feels even more grand. And … there’s more: Salzburg’s Paul Lackner owns the last two Klammer and Purtscheller Medals … but Leonhard “Mule” Brunner leads the Tyrol League in scoring (comfortably) and surely cannot be denied the Purt if Bern continues to win every week. Indeed, the most remarkable match note is that Bern sought a 12-0-0 start to its season, tying Vienna for the longest win streak to begin a season since the Composers’ 2013 title-winning campaign.
Bern’s Mayor Arthur Altermatt was on hand, but Bern’s greatest player, Mule’s grandfather Bernhard Brunner, tossed the famed ’10 Franc – the coin preserved from the 1910 Armed Bears’ title season – at mid-field, and the game finally began for the 13,000 fans crowded onto the meadow. The Alpenhorns blasted out their stirring notes as the players shook hands.
Brunner was not a revelation, since he has dominated all comers this year, but he was a revelation. 6’3” and 15 pounds heavier than last season, there is simply little that can impede the Mule as he gallops across the field. His Skot from 30 meters gave the Bears a 4-0 lead almost before the delightful Esme Rotemuller and the other ‘Charmed Bears’ knew what had happened.
Hard work, particularly from Lackner and Salzburg’s Gate, Elias Hoffer, led to the Flowers claiming a 14-13 lead at the Interval, but there was an inevitability about Bern’s eventual 30-28 victory. Brunner was supreme, but his Captain, Felix Moser, showed the grit and smarts that have seen the Bears through several tight resolutions this season. After the game, after the friendly hand-shakes, Moser, holding his four-year old son Hansi, smiled and said, “I’m glad that one’s over. We had nothing left.” Given the honest effort both teams left on that meadow, a fair claim.
Who – if anyone – will end Bern’s glorious start? I can’t be in Bern every weekend, as 29 other compelling stories are being told across the three divisions of the Austrian League, but, like you dear readers, I’m fascinated.
One reason that the AL has established fervent followers throughout central Europe and beyond is the straight-forward manner in which its representatives speak for the game and their own teams. Why is Klagenfurt losing and sliding toward relegation to the Wheat League? Well, Captain Allie Wurter may not know, but he offered only blunt self-criticism after a 17-2 thrashing from the Yodelers of Interlaken. As their fans somewhat lugubriously marched to the statue of old Duke Bernhard to, as tradition has demanded of them since, oh, September 1872, drape a sackcloth over his shoulders, Wurter shook his square head. “We’re rubbish this season. I’ve been poor and our sets and alignments seem slow and over-matched. The people of Klagenfurt deserve more from us. We can only try harder and hope to salvage a place in the Alpine.”
A last note for this edition of Observations and Opinions. My editors have been kind enough to let me explain my absence from my usual post – and great pleasure – in viewing and offering opinions about the AL matches we all enjoy throughout the Wiesespiel season. Since the esteemed Tiroler Spaß Schreibtisch was founded in 1873, our primary pledge has been to cover the sport for which the TSS was created: the “Tyrolean Games,” as the Klagenfurters put it in their original charter for the game they and Villach first played on September 22, 1872. And, yes, a record of the weekly matches and a chance for all who love The Meadow Game to read further and study the game logs and memorize statistics (as I did as a lad!) matters greatly, but I was gifted last autumn with the chance to live, travel with and observe the Salzburg Edelweiss throughout their summer training and the beginning of their season. Ultimately, we at the TSS hope to see a full-length book emerge from this remarkable opportunity to see a team form and compete. We wish to thank Team President Jakob Von Trapp and the entire Von Trapp family for their welcoming attitude, for the staff at the Kletterpark who spoke with candor and good humor, and to the humble and dedicated players who gave me access to their lives. As the book will display, one hopes, young men such as “the Field Mouse” Paul Lackner, Elias Hoffer and Hugo Thurner are more charming, pleasant and amusing than they are fast, agile, and strong … and that is saying something.
TSS Publishing hopes to present my book, Every Morning We Greet Thee: A Season with the Salzburg Edelweiss, by mid-summer. Until then, I remain in debt to the Edelweiss family and thank you, dear readers, for the indulgence that allowed the book to form at the significant cost of months away from my original mandate: to report on The Austrian League’s weekly displays of athletic skill and courage.