On April 30, Kevin Pasche and Lausanne HC came very close to a first national title.
Imago
That was precisely 157 days ago. The heroic Lausanne HC lost at the end of the seventh act of a grandiose play-off final, leaving the national title to the clinical ZSC Lions in this decisive round.
The brutal end of an epic of all superlatives for the Vaudois club, of a waking dream which held an entire canton in suspense for entire weeks. The heartbreak, so painful, had then made the Lausanne heroes falter, who until then had never let their emotions show. The image of Captain Michael Raffl – formidable leader of a united and courageous group – in tears had left an impression.
“Digestion is a big word”
Five months have passed since this cruel epilogue. The Lions’ eyes finally dried up; the pain was resolved as best it could. “Digestion is a big word,” breathes Théo Rochette. Moments like this will always stay in the back of our minds. However, there is nothing more to do. So I’m trying to focus on what we can accomplish this year.”
Starting with this inevitably special return to the Swiss Life Arena in Zurich, this Saturday evening (kick-off at 7:45 p.m.), on the same ice where the last illusions of coronation were definitively gone last spring.
Théo Rochette, left, hopes to take a little revenge on Saturday against Zurich.
freshfocus
“I expect that there will be a certain nostalgia and that flashbacks of last year will resurface when returning to this rink,” projects Kevin Pasche (21). I also think that there will be a greater desire to win, to show them that they certainly won the final, but that it is now a new season and that we really want to beat them.
“Prove that we could also have won this 7th match”
Théo Rochette fully shares this feeling of revenge, even if he judiciously points out that the contingents of the two teams have evolved quite a bit during the off-season.
“Everyone at the LHC wants to prove that we could also have won this seventh match,” assures the 22-year-old striker. But we have to find the right balance between these kinds of thoughts and the fact that this final now belongs to the past.
The center player, who amazed everyone last season during his professional debut, has many memories of this series against the ZSC Lions. But also an overflowing appetite.
For Théo Rochette, last season’s finale “will stay in our heads forever.”
Imago
“This final will stay in our heads forever,” recognizes the No. 90 of the Lions. It is now part of the history of both the club and the League. It’s something that happened. Now the goal is to have a simple and positive thought, to go out there, to concentrate, to take this match like any other and to give everything to win.
Kevin Pasche, who experienced the final in the complicated role of understudy to the extraordinary goalkeeper Connor Hughes, brings a little nuance to his partner’s words.
“Continue to progress”
“We certainly have to succeed in drawing a line under what we accomplished last season and say to ourselves that things are going to be different, but we also have to keep the good things we did last year,” believes the new Vaudois starting goalkeeper. We even have to build on that and not erase everything we achieved during the last championship.”
This is good: coach Geoff Ward and his coaching staff seem to want to work on the continuity of this breathtaking 2023-2024 exercise. At the start of the new season, the Canadian coach hoped to “achieve a new leap forward and continue to progress”. And what remains after a lost finale in the seventh act?
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