The German women’s national ice hockey team traveled to Canada with the aim of staying up for the World Cup. Now she is surprisingly in the quarterfinals.
The goal has been reached, now comes the freestyle. Just don’t get off – that was the motto of the German ice hockey women before the World Cup in Canada Brampton. The team achieved its goal of staying up – and not just barely, but with flying colours.
After victories against Sweden (6:2), France (3:0) and Hungary (2:1), they finished second in Group B and reached the quarter-finals. There it goes against the USA, one of the top favorites. Only against Finland (0:3) there was a defeat. At the A-WM last year, the team narrowly avoided relegation at the last second.
Before the start very pessimistic
“It will be extremely difficult to keep the class. More is not possible at the moment.”sports director Christian Künast said before the start of the tournament: “Quarter-final qualifiers will be very difficult, I’ll be honest.” The reason: German women’s ice hockey has structural problems. Just seven teams play in the Bundesliga, there is no substructure.
“It’s very good for women’s hockey”
Now, after completing the preliminary round with three wins, the mood is better. “The team has performed well throughout the tournament so far and deservedly qualified for the quarter-finals. This is an important step in the right direction and is very good for women’s ice hockey.”said the DEB sports director after the win against Hungary.
DEB Vice President Andreas Niederberger is also very satisfied: “The team has played a really good tournament so far, with three wins from four games. But I didn’t just like the results, I also really liked the overall appearance. All in all, we can say that our women’s national team had a very good World Cup be happy.”
Playful and combative
Coach Thomas Schädler’s team convinced in a playful and combative manner and brought the opponents down with an aggressive attack forechecking always in trouble.
Above all, the victory against the Swedes was not planned. “Of course I’m very proud of the whole team and the whole staff after this great win against the Swedes”said national coach Schädler: “We had prepared a plan in advance of how we wanted to design the game and it worked very well.”
Defender Tanja Eisenschmid is missing
Schädler will have to do without one of his best players in Canada. The experienced defender Tanja Eisenschmid, who had ensured that they stayed up last year, was not able to travel. Eisenschmid made it 3-2 in the last group match of the 2022 World Cup against hosts Denmark after 59:59 minutes.
international experience
A total of 23 players (three goalkeepers, seven defenders, 13 forwards) are in Schädler’s squad. There are also six players from US colleges: Sandra Abtreter (Providence College), Nina Jobst-Smith (University of Minnesota), Luisa and Lilli Welcke (Maine University), Sonja Vogt (St Cloud University) and Nina Christof (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).
Germany’s Celina Haider (r) scored twice against Sweden.
Also Tabea Botthof (SDE Hockey/Sweden), Heidi Strompf (HC Presov/Slovakia), Marie Delarbre, Nicola Eisenschmid (both Djurgarden Stockholm/Sweden) and Bernadette Karpf (Leksands IF/Sweden) bring international experience and toughness with them.
Now against the US
In the quarterfinals on Thursday (13.04.2023) at 7.30 p.m. German time against the USA, the German team is a blatant outsider. “All in all, my team played a really good preliminary round and now we’re looking forward to the quarter-finals. We’re expecting a very difficult game, but we’re ready for it and we’ll use our tactics again.”, according to Schädler. For a win against the USA must “everything fits”. The best World Cup result by a German team was fourth place at the 2017 World Cup in plymoth (UNITED STATES).
The fact that Germany, second in Group B, has to play against one of the top favorites is down to the mode. The World Cup will be played in two groups. All five teams in the stronger Group A advance to the quarter-finals, while the top three teams in Group B advance to the knockout stages. Germany is in the official Ranking therefore only in seventh place.
Eisenschmid: “Just carry on as before”
Forward Nicola Eisenschmid goes into the game against the USA in good spirits: “I think we’ll just carry on as before. We put a lot of pressure on the opponents and we do a good forecheck. We just keep going, get the shots on target and then it works.” And even if it doesn’t work out, DEB sports director Künast is already hoping for an impetus for German women’s ice hockey: “We can look positively into the future.”