But first things first: At the General Assembly in April this year, Frank Schneider, Erik Mudde and Nick Zepf announced their retirement after more than seven years of great commitment to the association. Their offer to remain in their positions on an interim basis until September 30, 2025 was gratefully accepted by the General Assembly.

This opened the search for qualified candidates for the positions of President, Vice-President and Secretary General. However, despite a great deal of effort on the part of everyone involved – both at Board level and by the presidents of the clubs – no candidates could be found by the end of July. It was only after a further intensification of the search (including a LinkedIn post, the formation of a search committee and personal discussions) that the first candidates came forward at the beginning of September.

“The fact that we had to report at least one President and one Secretary General of Swiss Hockey to Swiss Olympic by 30 September was an incredible pressure for the office,” says Punleuk Kam. “Every day that went by without us having valid candidates was one day closer to the scenario of “dissolution of the association/national team etc.”.

On the other hand, the search committee (Karine Ven, Head of Development and Education, Swiss Hockey; Patrick Huber, Head of Finance, Swiss Hockey and Punleuk Kam, CEO Swiss Hockey) was interested in finding qualified candidates – and not acting according to the “1st come, 1st served” principle.

However, two suitable candidates were found almost simultaneously at the beginning of September: Rob Mudde (as President) and Asad van Gelderen (as General Secretary). The subsequent discussions with other very exciting candidates also led to a positive result, so that on September 24, not only the President and the General Secretary could be elected, but another 4 departments could be filled with highly qualified candidates.

Swiss Hockey is looking forward to its new board with Rob Mudde (President), Sabrina Solomons-Maillard (Vice-President), Asad van Gelderen (Secretary General), Patrick Huber (Finance), Karine Ven (Development and Education), Stefan Bircher (Competitive Sports), Raphael Martos (Volunteering) and Ralph Heidemann (Communications), who will take office on 01.10.2025

The new board is looking forward to getting to know you all and you can also meet them in person at one or the other event / tournament / meeting. And again, stay tuned, because we will introduce you to the new board members in the next issues