After several heavy claps at the last edition, the German U20 national team’s only concern at the Ice Hockey World Cup in Sweden is to stay in the league. “It’s clear that our goal is to stay in the A group and leave the tournament saying: That was a good World Cup,” said national coach Tobias Abstreiter to “Ice Hockey News”.
After the start against Finland on Wednesday (2:30 p.m./MagentaSport), the German Ice Hockey Association (DEB) team will face Sweden (December 28th), Latvia (December 30th) and defending champion Canada (December 31st) in the preliminary round group A . December/all at 7:30 p.m.), against whom Germany experienced a 2:11 debacle a year ago. Except for the Latvians, all opponents are medal contenders.
The preparation for the tournament also didn’t go as planned. There were defeats in all four test matches, three of them against Switzerland, Norway and Slovakia only after extra time or a penalty shootout. Above all, the 5:6 defeat after overtime two days before Christmas Eve against the Slovaks annoyed Abstreiter.
“We improved in many areas of the game compared to the game against Norway,” said Abstreiter: “Nevertheless, we were disappointed to end up with a defeat after a 5-2 lead. We will still take the positive things into it Take the World Cup tournament with us and try to bring more consistency into our game.”
The German U20 team has been playing in the top division since 2019/20. This time just a single win could be enough to stay in the league. The world association IIHF quietly and secretly changed the mode: the relegation between the bottom of the two groups was limited to one game.