1950's
1953
1956
1960
1979
1988
1989
2001
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2011
Spring
2012
March
2012
Summer
2012
October
2012
February
2013
March
2013
April
2013
Always
Future
Celebrating 60 years of military hockey!
Our military ice hockey organization has been around in one form or another since the 1950's, starting off as the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) 3 Wing Flyers out of Zweibrucken Air Base.
Taken from: http://goflyersgo.ning.com/
The Flyers came into being in 1953 due to the untiring efforts of F/O Peter Cunningham. This sportsman Flyer, along with the generous financial backing of a Dr. Krantz in Munich, founded the first Air Division Hockey Team. As we had no ice arena at 3 Wing in those days the home games were played in Munich. Unfortunately, Pete Cunningham lost his life in a flying accident in 1954; however, his team lived on.
From a modest beginning, it grew into the RCAF Flyers Europe, a picked team of the best hockey players in the Air Division. As Dr. Krantz could no longer assume the finanical burden of supporting the team 3 Wing took over and ice time was obtained at Mannheim to play games.
In January of 1956, this arena was opened and named after the Flyers founder F/O Peter Cunningham. From then on, the Flyers proceeded to make a name for themselves in European hockey circles during these "GOLDEN YEARS".
The Flyers were known all across the European Continent as Canada's skating ambassadors. They played in the first German league and also participated in games against the national teams of Canada, U.S.A, Germany and Italy, as well as the leading teams from the Scandanavian counties.
By 1960, the other wings in Air Division had their own arenas and as is understandable, were loath to give up their hockey players to 3 Wing. So, with the halt of this supply of hockey talent, the RCAF Flyers Europe ceased to be and the 3 Wing Flyers took over. Even so, they have formed formidable opposition to our European counterparts and are still much in demand as opponents in Europe. - A HUGE thanks to Armin Karcher for providing the photos!
Following the majority of the Canadians departing Zweibrucken, the American military took responsibility for the base to include the ice rink, renaming the team to CANUSA. They expanded the area of playing friendly games to teams in and around Paris, France.
One of our players, Mike Mamer, can recall playing for CANUSA in 1979. It was a combined team of American and Canadian players, which played at the Zweibrucken Air Base rink. The team played friendly games throughout Germany and Luxembourg, especially against Canadian teams at other NATO locations such as Baden Baden and Lahr.
"I played from 1979 to 1982 with Mike Mammer. We played from 79-80 for CANUSA, made up of American and Canadian Forces. From 1980 to 1982 I played out of Zweibrucken with the team under the name of the USA Ambassadors. We competed against the Canadian Base teams in Lahr and Baden-Baden, German teams, French teams, the Luxenburg and Belgum National Teams. Only lost a handful of games over the course of 3 years. I do remember Mamer planing the trip to play in Denmark to play hockey, only to find out later it was a Field Hockey tournment." - Joe Kirchner
Benny King played for the team from 1988 to 1993, when they were known as the "Warriors". They were pretty much the same mix of Active duty and Civilians as the current team. They started out playing teams from Bitburg and Spangdahlem and local German teams: KTown, Mannheim. They also played at the two Canadian bases at Lahr and Baden Baden, where there were a bunch of squadron teams where they played both home and away.
The Warriors joined the German League in 1989 and played in the Landes league during the first year and beat the pants off all of the German teams. They were promoted to the Regional league and had some good games.
After the Canadians left Zweibrucken in 1991, things slowed down quite a bit. The bar that sponsored the team closed and they only had a few players coming in from Ramstein and K-town.
In 2001, the team was renamed to the Ramstein Rams, led by John Hoffman and Frank Barker, playing pickup and friendly games around Germany.
In 2004, under the new leadership of Tom Duggan, the name changed to the KMC Eagles, to encompass the KMC area of 50,000 military forces (U.S./NATO) and host nationals. The team averaged about 20 players during the season, welcoming any skill level to help off-set the costs of being an ice hockey organization.
Expanding beyond friendly games, the KMC Eagles were invited to play in a newly formed German league known as the Die Players Liga (DPL), managed by an American Educator, Ken Robinson.
The league consisted of 8 teams. Struggling through the season with one goalie, the KMC Eagles was challenged with maintaining a strong enough roster to be competitive, averaging about 9 to 10 players per game.
In 2005, Tom Duggan was scheduled to deploy, missing the start of the upcoming season. Seeking a replacement, the old timers nominated Todd Poynter to take the reins of the newly formed team, a novice player to the game but connected to the NHL by his father, Anthony "Tony" Mancuso. With the support of his wife, Paulette, and his family, Todd decided to take the position of President of the KMC Eagles.
Knowing that the team was in need of new players, Todd was aggressive in marketing the KMC Eagles to the community in hopes of recruiting new talent to replace the outgoing players that were returning to the U.S. At the first practice, approximately 47 new players were on the ice, rounding the four corners of the rink during drills, a concern for high flying slap shots over the net.
Paul Hilfer an ex-academy team captain and now Eagles coach had concerns on how to satisfy the amount of players with enough ice time for games and practices. An issue Todd would have to resolve in the next year. One of the highlights of the season is playing the Luxembourg National team during an end-of-season tournament, 15-0 loss to the Eagles.
During the DPL's second year, the Eagles team won the cup! Players included Mamer, Hilfer, Tommy Duggan, Ryan Argenta, Jason Grey, Merrill "Slep" Slepica and John Lane.
In 2007, Todd decided to create a second team as the KMC Adlers, known in German as "Eagles". Both teams, KMC Eagles and KMC Adlers were entered into the DPL for league games and the USAFE Armed Forces Tournament, an annual military event for the past 15 years. Tom Duggan had returned from his deployment to assist the coach, John Nagy, with managing the KMC Eagles, placing second at the USAFE tournament. This was the highest level achieved. The KMC Adlers led by Scott Smith, placed eight.
In 2008, the roster for the organization continued to grow, with an email distribution list of more than 90 players. As the two teams became stronger, the teams were a more formidable force with the league and friendly games in and out of Germany. Under the coach of Phil Forward and assistant coach Tony Mancuso, the KMC Eagles again placed 2nd in the USAFE Tournament. The KMC Adlers placed eight, but with more goals scored during the event.
In 2009, Brian O'Connor (player/coach) took the KMC Eagles to a banner year, winning the DPL Championship against the Baden Bruins (arch rivals), DPL Harder Cup, Prague New Year Tournament, and most importantly, our 1st USAFE Armed Forces Tournament Championship!
The KMC Adlers under the management of Mike Mamer, and late in the season, Parker Hamilton, continued to show team development like a young Eagles team, placing sixth in USAFE, and winning numerous friendly and league games.
A season highlight was the Eagles playing against the German 2nd league team, Zweibrucken Hornets, with over 450 paying fans and professional photographers in attendance.
Tragically, on the morning after hockey practice on March 2nd, 2011, we lost an Eagle, A1C Zachary "Cudde" Cuddeback, as he was killed during a terrorist shooting in Frankfurt.
Zac's memory lives on forever in our organization as we have swarmed in numbers to the Annual 5K that is assembled in his memory, and proudly waved our memorial banner after Championships.
And most recently, we are holding our own Inaugural Cuddeback Cup hockey tournament in September.
Zac will forever be a model Airman and Eagle for the world to remember!
In spring 2012, after nearly a decade of dedication to our hockey organization, Todd Poynter stepped down and handed over the Eagles Presidency to Eric "the Red" Helgeson.
A new website was designed, a new Facebook page created...but the spirit and idea of this great hockey family didn't change at all.
Battling through a tough season of deployments, TDY's, injuries, PCS's, etc, Eagles 1 was able to make it from the 4th seed in the standings to the Div I DPL Championship Game!
They have had to play all three games, in the best of three, in both of their playoff rounds and had to face the defending champions, the Heddesheim Flames.
Coming out with the fury, the Eagles dominated the first half of the game, leading at one time 6-1. Heddesheim climbed back in the game and caused a scare, but the Eagles never gave up as they pulled off a 10-7 victory and returned to Moloney's Irish Pub in K-town as Champions!
In the summer, we started a recruiting stand in the KMCC mall on Ramstein and we convinced around 20 people that they could still play hockey, growing our active players to over 70!
As the 2012/2013 season started off, Eric wanted to recognize the "MVP of the Eagles" family right away.
In front of around 30 Eagles, including family and friends, the Eagles leadership presented Todd and Paulette Poynter with a plaque and officially retired number 68.
Included on his plaque were donations from players of all four USAFE Championship pucks he earned during his glorious tenure.
Todd and Paulette's contributions will never be forgotten!
The Eagles showed their strength in leadership after a last minute fiscal crisis as USAFE lost it's funding for the tournament in Garmisch.
We stepped up and raised around $9,000, organized the ice times, and coordinated with the refs and rink managers in less than two weeks.
The 11-team military tournament was a HUGE success and the Eagles stood proud with their 5th Armed Forces - Europe Championship in a row!
In March of 2013, two KMC Eagles teams played in the annual Zoetermeer (Amsterdam), Netherlands tournament.
A mixture of all three Eagles teams were sent for the great time like normal. Of course, lot's of interesting stories from adventures in Amsterdam popped up!
Eagles 1 came back in "Miracle" fashion to beat a French team 4-2 that crushed them 7-2 during the opening game of the tournament, crowning them the 2013 Division I Champions!
During our end of season party at De Belgian Bistro that was filled with over 60 Eagles, we surprised one of the most respected players in our organization.
On the 20th of April 2013, number 28 was officially retired in dedication to Scott "Scotty" Zwiers.
Along with all the contributions off-ice, he was crowned as 2009 & 2012 DPL Champion, 2009-2012 USAFE Champion, 2-time USAFE MVP & 2011-2012 Zweibrucken Champion.
In the 2012/2013 ice season, the Eagles organization conducted 52 practices, played in over 52 league & friendly games and 5 tournaments in 3 European countries.
The support and dedication from the players to take on key roles, offer assistance, and to play whenever, wherever is what makes us strong...like no other hockey team.
The overall success of the season was largely in part to the player's families, supporting late games and practices, traveling to other countries, paying out-of-pocket expenses for equipment and hotels, and all the while, showing support in cold ice rinks.
We look forward to another exciting and challenging year with many of the old timers moving on during the summer. Contact us if you would like to add more historical events or facts to the webpage.
Once an Eagle...always an Eagle!
GO EAGLES!
Eric "the Red"
Eagles Prez
This is a private organization. It is not part of the Department of Defense or any of its components and it has no governmental status.
