BAt the Ice Hockey World Championships in Tampere, Finland, they try again with all kinds of hands-on activities on the video cube. There are enough interruptions during the games and the audience has to be kept happy during those. So it’s constantly being asked to do something: clapping, singing, drumming, playing air guitar.
There’s even the Referee Dance Cam, where you have to dance a, well, choreography made up of the referees’ hand signals. And of course a hyperactive mascot jumps through the rows of spectators again and tries to heat up the crowd. But when the German team played their first tournament game against Sweden on Friday evening, the spark didn’t want to fly. It rarely got loud among the officially almost 9,000 ice hockey fans in the hall.
No class difference
But that may also have been due to the fact that there were unusually few goals for ice hockey. It ended up being just one, and most fans didn’t like the distribution. They were Finns, and they’re generally not happy about Swedish victories.
But there was one. The selection of the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) lost 0:1 (0:0, 0:0, 0:1), which reflected what was happening on the ice quite aptly. It wasn’t a class difference, as had happened against Sweden in previous years. But the one goal, the Scandinavians were just better.
“We certainly won’t hide,” national coach Harold Kreis had announced the night before. That’s how it happened. But nobody expected anything else. The question was more: Who should score the goals? Kreis had left many of the top scorers from the domestic league at home, and even more high-ranking personnel had canceled of their own accord, including those from abroad. But what should the Swedes say with their 113 NHL players? Just eight of them are now at the World Championships, but the eleven-time world champion is always a medal candidate.
“Absolute Boards”
Because he was struggling from time to time at the start, Moritz Seider sensed an opportunity: “Maybe we can benefit from it,” said the German defense chief, who is of course aware that there have been more rewarding game plans than this year’s: The first three tasks Sweden, Finland and the United States have it all, “absolute boards” they are, said Seider. There can also be three defeats quickly.
The first one was there, but there isn’t much time for strife, it’s on this Saturday evening (7:20 p.m. live on Sport1 and MagentaSport) against the Finns, who also lost their start, 1: 4 against the young Americans. That’s what it said on Friday evening for both Germans and Finns: tick it off and carry on. Captain Moritz Müller had demanded this before the first face-off. Not only the game is important, but also how you deal with the knowledge afterwards.
The findings: In terms of pace, the German team can keep up with top teams. It is defensively structured, usually pushes the opponents outwards and hardly allows any great chances. The Swedes had their first real match when the first third was almost over. After 20 minutes the Germans had allowed only four shots. Only in the second period, when the game became more physical, did goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger intervene more often – and he did so to everyone’s satisfaction. He was only beaten early in the final section outnumbered; Oscar Lindberg’s goal was deflected.
Another finding, on the other hand, is likely to put you in a less good mood. Because you could see what many had expected: the DEB selection was too harmless offensively against the Swedes. Although they did create chances, especially in the early stages they were even the better team, but they just didn’t hit the goal. Whether JJ Peterka, Dominik Kahun or Justin Schütz – nobody managed to get the puck in the goal.
Even during the four chances to win the game, the disc moved back and forth quickly, but it rarely flew in the direction of the Swedish goal. And if there was nobody there to block goalkeeper Lars Johansson’s sight. In the end, the Germans had only 19 shots on target. Too little.
