The German U20 national team celebrated a surprising opening victory at the Ice Hockey World Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden.
National coach Tobias Abstreiter’s team won 4:3 (1:1, 3:2, 0:0) against medal candidate Finland on Wednesday (December 27th, 2023), taking a big step towards staying in the league in the first game.
The duel with the favored hosts Sweden is already on Thursday (7.30 p.m.). Veit Oswald (6th minute/35th), Niklas Hübner and Roman Kechter (34th) scored the goals for the German Ice Hockey Association (DEB) team. Goalkeeper Philipp Dietl saved 40 shots from the Finns.
In the preliminary round group A, the DEB team, which has been playing first class since 2019/2020 and took eighth place in the last edition, will face Latvia (December 30th) and defending champion Canada (December 31st/both at 7.30 p.m.).
National coach Abstreiter praises his team
“I particularly liked the commitment, the willingness to run and the absolute will to give everything for the team”said national coach Abstreiter, “We saw against the Finns what is possible if we believe in ourselves. We will now recover as best we can so that we can go into the game against the Swedes with the same attitude as today.”
Before the tournament, Abstreiter emphasized that the primary goal was to stay in the league. At the last edition, the German team suffered several major defeats – including an 11-2 defeat against Canada.