National coach Toni Söderholm tried to keep everyone in a good mood during training. The German ice hockey team reacted with demonstrative ease to the harsh start and the injury to leading player Marco Nowak at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
“We’ve all been in the ice hockey business for so long that we know that a bad mood doesn’t help,” said attacker Matthias Plachta – one of ten silver winners in 2018 in the team. “We’re a group that has a lot of fun together.”
This was clearly felt in training before, despite the bad 1: 5 against a C selection of record Olympic champions Canada without NHL stars. Also without Nowak, who after the severe but unpunished check by Canadian Eric O’Dell on Thursday with suspected concussion is out for the time being. It is unclear whether only on Saturday (9:40 a.m. / ZDF and Eurosport) against outsiders China or also in the last preliminary round game on Sunday (2:10 p.m. / ARD and Eurosport) against the USA.
“Today he was better than yesterday,” reported the sports director of the German Ice Hockey Federation, Christian Künast. But since Nowak is already training individually away from the ice, the 31-year-old defender of the Düsseldorf EG is likely to play again in Beijing. But very likely not on Saturday against the Kunlun Red Star club team from the Russian-influenced KHL, which is playing as China’s national team at the Olympics.
Olympia: “Take every opponent seriously”
“This is a nation that we can beat,” said Plachta, who of course knows that a win against the big outsider is a must: “You can put it that way, but you have to take every opponent seriously.” Apart from the fact that after the worrying performance of the self-proclaimed medal contender against Canada, any other attitude is out of the question, anything but a win would certainly be a disgrace. The dubiousness of China’s Olympic appearance became even more clear than was known in the 0:8 against the US team, which mainly consisted of college players.
Because of the clear inferiority of the world number 32. – behind Spain and ahead of Australia – the world association IIHF had even considered withdrawing the traditional right to start at the Olympics from the host nation. In order not to snub the Chinese, they got creative and let the KHL team from Beijing compete at the Winter Games. The team, made up entirely of North Americans, has officially been playing badly in Moscow for some time because of the corona pandemic. In the KHL, Kunlun is a distant last. The 13 Canadians, three US citizens and one Russian Kunlun were given Chinese names without further ado, and the strict naturalization formalities were probably not taken too seriously.
Söderholm: “A touch of the exotic” is part of the Olympics
“I still have my US passport,” reported Jieke Kailiaosi, whose real name is Jake Chelios and is the son of NHL icon Chris Chelios. “I’m definitely not Chinese, but I’ve been playing for a Chinese team for three years, got the chance to live here and I love it,” said Chelios. English is spoken in the dressing room with the Italian coach Ivano Zanatta. At least nine Chinese-born players keep up appearances a bit. “The Olympics always have a touch of the exotic,” said Söderholm diplomatically.
After losing to Canada, the Finn was more concerned with rebuilding his team than worrying about the sense or nonsense of the Chinese team. During training on Friday, Söderholm had a striking number of one-on-one conversations. With many shots, some of them on the empty goal, self-confidence should obviously be revived. “We had an efficient meeting and now a good training session. Tomorrow we have another chance,” said Plachta. The man from Mannheim also experienced a false start at the Olympics in Pyeongchag in 2018 with two defeats at the start. After that, Germany got better and better, only 56 seconds were missing in the end against Russia in the final for the gold medal.