During the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang in 2018, it was once written about the German national ice hockey team that these “shaggy bears”, these bearded boys and their side-by-side hair had a hit with their medals, and were refreshingly different from the masses of athletes.
The national ice hockey team is the grunge squad between the national teams – visually. But they have to sing a lot these days at the World Cup in Riga, the boys from the ice hockey band. On Monday evening, they blew up the national anthem for the third time in four days of the match.
This seemed so strange, and perhaps Germany’s recent appearance from the block had hurt the loser a lot. The Canadians wanted to quickly turn away after the match, after a bitter 1: 3 against the Germans. Group B balance after three days of matches: Germany with three wins and Canada with three defeats. Who would have thought that before? no one.
Dominic Cahon comes to Riga
But as far as the Germans were concerned, there were also victories with the ads. The success so far in the World Cup is due to the team spirit of the team, the well-trained classes – because the players know each other from clubs or from youth. Success is also a logical consequence of youth work that has brought in a lot of talent at a high level for years and of course now there is also a national coach in Tony Söderholm from Finland, who not only hires a team at an excellent level in a tactical manner, but it also reaches out to them.
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The team’s demands and self-confidence grew Team spirit It can be felt at every video conference of the national team from Riga – when, for example, like on Tuesday, Corby (Corbynian Holzer) tells what makes Mo (Moritz Cider) so powerful, or whether Leon (in The reality is Leon Draisitel) now follows Latvia will travel after their elimination with the Edmonton Oilers in the National Hockey League (NHL) qualifiers.
“If Dominic Cahon and Lyon could attend now, it would be home numbers,” Holzer says.
Then it became just a house number: by late Tuesday evening, it was clear that only Cahon could come to Riga. He was due to leave Canada on Tuesday and will use it at the end of the group stage. On the other hand, Dracetel didn’t come because it was supposed to be organizationally unfeasible.
The fact that the Germans are missing five of their nominal best players in their first matches (Tim Stotzl, Niko Sturm, goalkeeper Philipp Groppower and “Groppi” along with the pros from Edmonton) is also an indication of an increase in Germany’s category – earlier there were not many players. The mighty Germans in the NHL. The fact that they are still able to put together such a strong team with many internationally qualified players (Holzer, Tobias Ridder, Tom Khunkle, Lyn Bergman) or huge talent (Lucas Rachel, Cider) speaks to their increasing quality.
After three victories, Kazakhstan now comes
Sure, the other World Cup teams can’t compete with many of the best, either – but the Germans also can’t compete, so one of the first three wins shouldn’t be put into perspective. That was really a big grunge up here. The effort of the team, which threw himself in every shot to block it in the many out of numbers against Canada, was unbelievable. They also deserved the hard win over the Canadians.
After three out of seven group matches, the World Cup is not over for the Germans, and there should be little doubt about participating in the quarter-finals, especially since the players may not underestimate any opponents, not even the Kazakhs, the opponents of the German national team. Germans on Wednesday (3:15 pm, live broadcast on Sport 1).
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Holzer played last season at KHL, who works under Russian supervision, and says, “I know the players from Kazakhstan very well. That’s 90 percent of the team from Pars Kazan, so we have to prepare well.” The Kazakhs have already had two surprise wins (against Latvia and Finland. ).
It will not be underestimated, as Marcel Neubels (“Noebi”) of Eisbären Berlin has promised. He told Tagesspiegel: “I think we can have a lot of confidence from the Canada match.” “But the other thing is that we started from scratch and we all know that it’s hard to win against anyone here, regardless of the name of the nation. So we go into every match and we believe in our strengths!”
Corby, Mo and their partners may sing again after the match on Wednesday.
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