Ice hockey: One month after Olympic silver: Ehrhoff ends his ice hockey career

Exactly one month after the silver sensation of Pyeongchang, Christian Ehrhoff has ended his ice hockey career. A few hours after the end of the DEL play-offs with the Cologne sharks, the 35-year-old announced his resignation via the social media. The World Championship in Denmark (4. till 20. May) already takes place without him.

“Today my professional career ends! 19 years as a professional is a long time. Thanks to my teams, players, coaches, coaches, physios, doctors and of course to the fans for their support and countless wonderful moments and memories,” wrote Ehrhoff. He presented a picture from his childhood in ice hockey outfit under the Christmas tree.

“I informed the team, the shark organization and of course the national coach Marco Sturm about this step. I enjoyed a long and successful career. I’m very grateful for that. I am now looking forward to a new chapter in my life,” Ehrhoff said in a statement on the DEB homepage: “The decision has been well considered and matured in recent weeks. After so many years at the highest level, now is the time for me to start something new.”

DEB President Franz Reindl expressed “fullest understanding” for Ehrhoff’s decision: “He was a full-blooded ice hockey player,” Reindl told SID, “he was always a role model. With his performance on the ice, but also his personality, he is a figurehead of German ice hockey.”

How he kept the team together at the World Cup in Cologne or the Olympics, how he led them, that was exemplary,” he told SID.

Ehrhoff is one of the most successful players in German ice hockey history. In the North American professional league NHL, the native of Moers played 862 games as defender for the San Jose Sharks, the Vancouver Canucks, the Buffalo Sabres, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Los Angeles Kings and the Chicago Blackhawks.

With Vancouver, Ehrhoff, once the world’s most expensive defender, made it to the Stanley Cup final in 2011, but lost against Boston and Dennis Seidenberg.

Reindl wants to continue working with the long-standing DEB captain in the future, “I hope he will help us with advice and action,” he said, “our door is always open. It’s very, very important that we keep people like him in hockey to share their experiences,” Sturm reiterated: “We’d be stupid if we didn’t do it. He’s the type who can lead a team.”

Ehrhoff began his professional career with the Krefeld Penguins, with whom he sensationally won the DEL championship in 2003. Ehrhoff returned from the USA in 2016 and has since played for the Cologne sharks. In his last match he lost to Nürnberg Ice Tigers 1-5 in the play-off quarter-finals on Sunday. The Rhinelanders lost the series 2:4.

Ehrhoff had carried the German flag at the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in South Korea on the day of the final defeat against Russia (3:4 after extra time). Ehrhoff is father of three daughters.