Goalkeeper Sandra Abstreiter has so far been insurmountable at the World Cup in the USA and is fueling the hopes of the German ice hockey women for a medal. The next step towards this is the quarter-finals on Thursday (April 11, 2024, 7:30 p.m.) against the Czech Republic.
Sandra Abstreiter deserved the break in the final group game herself: the national goalkeeper had a brilliant performance to secure the decisive 1-0 triumph in the third preliminary round game against Sweden. With 32 saves, the 25-year-old drove the 2006 Olympic silver medalist to despair and made Germany’s third success perfect in the third game.
As group winners, national coach Jeff MacLeod’s team avoided a quarter-final duel against one of the big favorites from Canada and the USA. Now “everything is possible,” said Abstreiter after her shutout; she was allowed to take a break in the meaningless final game against China (3-0).
In the quarter-finals on Thursday evening against the Czech Republic, the goalkeeper will take her usual place between the posts again.
Defender at Ottawa in the US professional league – in front of 8,000 fans
What denies this is the great support of the German ice hockey women. Last September, after six years at Providence College, the Freisinger was the only German to be drafted for the new North American professional league PWHL.
The aim of the league is for the players to be able to make a living from ice hockey, said Abstreiter in the Sportschau interview, and this has also been implemented: “We practice it as our profession, we get paid for playing ice hockey.” In the German league, half of the players still have full-time jobs.
Nicole Seyffert, Sportschau, April 10, 2024 10:05 p.m
In her debut season, she only played in three games for Ottawa behind Canadian Olympic champion Emerance Maschmeyer, but training in Canada alone has helped her progress: “I’m facing the shots of the best players in the world.” And suddenly she’s no longer just performing in front of “a few students and professors” but in full arenas. The TD Place, where the NHL professionals the Ottawa Senators once played, is usually filled with more than 8,000 spectators: “That’s overwhelming.”
Abstreiter plays in a completely different ice hockey cosmos than her teammates. The entire team has benefited from their experience so far – no German women’s team has ever achieved four victories at a World Cup before. Memories of the 2017 World Cup come back – also in the USA. Back then, too, the German team secured first place in the weaker Group B and then sensationally reached the semi-finals with a win against Russia – the DEB women’s greatest success to date. National coach MacLeod doesn’t think a repeat performance is unrealistic either: “Anything is possible if we play and fight like that.”
National goalkeeper Abstreiter praised the mood in the team in the Sportschau interview. She also hopes that the successful World Cup so far will send a signal for women’s ice hockey as a whole. “We have received a lot more attention,” said Abstreiter, and this could also give new impetus to the entire sport at the grassroots level: “If the young girls see that we are successful.”
Nicole Seyffert, Sportschau, April 10, 2024 10:01 p.m
