cup play against the Bolzano HC which the KEC with 6:1 won, went from boredom with the puck behind own gate and made push-ups. The season 1985/86, the first playing time in which the former shark player Hardy Nilsson stood as a trainer in the Cologne gang became one of the most successful ones of the association history for the KEC. From beginning the team dominated the league and went as a front runner to the playoffs. There one lost only one play, won in the first final series against the Düsseldorf EC (DEG) with 3:0 victories and celebrated once more the mastery. Before one had already booked in the European cup the second place. However, also this season a tragic secondary phenomenon had for the sharks: 19-year-old Ralph Philipp, nephew of the long-standing KEC forward Rainer Philipp, died with a car accident. Since then the tricot number 8 which had "inherited" the promising young talent from his uncle any more will not award with the sharks to player. In the season 1986/87 a team since introduction of the playoffs succeeded with the KEC for the first time in defending her title gained in the season before. In the playoffs to which one had gone as a qualifying round second the sharks lost no play and defeated Schwenningen, the DEG and Mannheim in three plays in each case. Already before the season Clemens Vedder had removed his post as a treasurer for private reasons. A year later made the sharks to the Titelhattrick perfect when they won the fifth determining play with 4:1 in the finale of the Playoffs against the sports alliance of Rosenheim. With it they defeated the team which was better placed as only in the qualifying round. At the beginning of the playoffs set of the KEC a record unequalled till this day: Including three victories in each case against Frankfurt and Mannheim the team 20 won playoff plays in succession. 1988 to 1994: The Rhine rivals After the triple titles, the Sharks were seen as favorites in the 1988/89 season, besides, they had stated the table after the qualifying round. After one had won the vice title in the European cup, nevertheless, the inhabitants of Cologne retired in the semi-final of the national mastery against the DEG. With the DEG one had exchanged before the season the goalkeepers (Joseph "Peppi" Heiss came for Helmut de