Zug,18.07.2018

Zurich ice-hockey club fans fined

It was reported last March how a group of fans of the ZSC Lions Ice Hockey Club in Zurich came to Zug on the day of an important match against EVZ and attacked a number of local fans prior to the game. Now some of those found guilty of various offences have been fined.

It was actually on the afternoon of Saturday 10 March that some fifty members of a group of hooligans known as “Zurich Psychopaths” met up at a pub in Oerlikon called Sip’s, a well-known meeting place for ZSC fans. It was heard in court how a number of them planned to travel to Zug to engage in a fight with EVZ fans as the latter gathered at the Mr Pickwick’s Pub on Alpenstrasse in the city.

It seems much was planned with military precision, the ZSC fans marking out possible routes to Alpenstrasse on a map. Then, between 25 and 30 of them set off in a number of private cars, putting on face masks and wearing teeth guards and boxing bandages for protection once they had arrived in the city.

Then, at precisely 5.56 pm, two hours before the start of the match at the Bossard Arena, they launched their attack with one of them, a 19-year-old commercial assistant from Zurich, smashing three windows and throwing a flare through one of them. Then other ZSC fans started throwing chairs from outside through the windows, including one on the main door, the idea being to lure EVZ fans outside. In all, damage to the exterior of the pub alone amounted to CHF 10,000 (second photograph). EVZ fans managed to keep the doors to the pub shut, so no-one in side was actually injured.

The hooligans fled the scene by car in various directions, but the Zug police managed to stop three of their vehicles and detain 14 hooligans, one of whom was the afore-mentioned flare thrower.

He was found guilty of wilful damage to property, breach of the peace, several counts of offences in relation to the Explosives Act along with various other transgressions and fined a total off CHF 29,250, of which he will have to pay only CHF 5,850. The Gastrag AG, which runs the pub, is pursuing him in a separate civil case.

Another 25-year-old car mechanic from Effretikon was also found guilty of breach of the peace and fined CHF 4,200, which he is having to pay in full as he had a previous conviction.

A 24-year-old electrician from Winterthur was also was fined an undisclosed amount but is only having to pay CHF 1,800.