Ice Hockey: What’s the talk about Germany winning the World Cup, and what about Canada? – Sports

Tampere – For the first time in 93 years, a German national team has reached the final of the Ice Hockey World Championships.

With an upset 4:3 after extra time in the semi-finals against the USA, national coach Harold Kress’ team captured their first World Cup medal since 1953 in Tampere, Finland. “The goal now is definitely to kick Canada out. We’re going to kick them away,” said defender Jonas Mueller of Izberin Berlin at Magenta Sport.

This speaks of Germany’s first victory in the World Cup

National coach Harold Criss’s team has nothing to lose, at least it’s already a vice world champion. German World Cup MVP Nico Storm said of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks.

To this is added the will of the team, which is not composed of the best individual players, but always convinces as a unit. Against Switzerland in the quarter-finals, the match misconduct penalty was lifted against top German defender Moritz Seider. Germany came back against the USA after an early 0:2 and later a 2:3. After the three defeats at the start of the World Cup, progress in the all-or-nothing match against Denmark was at stake. Since then, six straight wins. “We’ve learned to go through phases when things don’t go well,” said Storm, the Stanley Cup winner. “We have the advantage over the other teams in the championship.”

The team’s confidence is enormous. In recent years, the belief in winning medals in major tournaments has always been there. At least since the silver medal at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. “The key to success is the belief that we can play with the best players,” said captain Moritz Müller. “Decades ago, you didn’t lose the match on the ice, but in the dressing room. It’s different now.” “We have matured as a youth and as a team. We have matured enough now to say we want to be world champions as well.”

This speaks for Canada

Canada, along with the currently excluded Russians, are the record world champions with 27 titles and could crown themselves record champions again with another success on Sunday. It is Canada’s seventh World Cup final since 2015. The role of the favorites is clearly divided. Of course, Germany is just an outsider.

21 of the 23 players on Canada’s roster play in the NHL. In Germany there are only three players from the strongest league in the world.

Canada is always present most of the time in games of interest. In the preliminary round, the Canadians lost to Switzerland and Norway after extra time. In the last preliminary round match against the Czech Republic, they again managed to beat the Czech Republic (3: 1), otherwise Canada would have reached the quarterfinals in fourth place in the group. In the knockout matches there were 4: 1 against the defending champions Finland. In the semi-finals, Canada trailed 2-1 after two-thirds to Latvia, then fought back again and won 4-2 in the end.