At the women’s ice hockey World Cup, the twins Lilli and Luisa Welcke also belong to the squad of the German team. Your gaze is already towards the Olympics.
Spring traditionally in ice hockey is the time for the really big dreams. The playoffs run in the leagues like the DELTrophies will be awarded, teams will be promoted. For the German Ice Hockey Association (DEB), the spring 2025 could be a very special one: the German players play a changed role in the World Cup in the Czech Budweis (April 9th to 20th).
Ice hockey World Cup 2025: “Want to achieve something”
“Our expectations rise with every World Cup that we play,” says Luisa Welcke in an interview with SWR Sport. The striker, who grew up in Heidelberg, is also part of the 24 -member squad of national coach Jeff Macleod like her twin sister Lilli – and she also says: “Our goal is no longer to be there. We want to achieve something as a team.”
The reason for the fresh self-confidence is not just the quarter-finals at the 2024 World Cup in the USA, which the German national team would like to top. The fact that the DEB selection already has an Olympic ticket in your pocket and can compete in the winter games in Milan next year also ensures new demands-but also a new looseness.
Welcke twins Shooting DEB selection to the Olympics
“The Olympic qualification was just really blatant,” Lilli looks back at the qualification tournament in Bremerhaven, where the German team prevails in early February with three victories in three games against Austria, Slovakia and Hungary.
The third and crucial game against Hungary is a thriller, Germany wins 2-1 and the Welcke twins score the two goals. “In the end it was just a great relief,” says Lilli: “It was always my childhood dream to come to the Olympics. There is already a huge anticipation for next year.”
Everything starts on the Heidelberger Christmas market
The path of the Welckes to the ice hockey national team is associated with a special story. Together with her parents and her older sister Lea, the 22-year-old twins grow up in Heidelberg, on the football and above all the tennis court you will discover your preference for the sporting competition. Ice hockey? The family has nothing to do with it for a long time.
But: Every year when the Heidelberg Christmas market starts in November, Mama and Papa Welcke provide their three daughters with season tickets for the small ice rink there. Puck and racket will soon be added to skate, and the Heilbronn EC will go on the ice in an association for the first time.
Lilli and Luisa Welcke now in the USA
Lea, almost two years older than the twins and today with the Mad Dogs Mannheim in the German women’s ice hockey league Active, will later be invited to the national team from the Welcke trio and to a U18 World Cup. “When we saw that she did it, we had a goal in mind,” says Lilli.
Because you want to do your sport at a higher level, you and Luisa decide for the step to North America in 2018. At the age of just 16, the two first play in a school, then for a college team and now for the “Terriers” of Boston University in the USA. With your team, in which only Americans and Canadians are active, they win the title in the “Hockey East” division at the beginning of March.
World Cup 2025: DEB team initially against Sweden
“It was just really cool,” says Lilli, who with 17 scorer points in 34 missions, which is eight -best player on her team on points. Luisa – also attacker – comes on an equally strong 16 points. Olympic qualification, a title in the USA, now the World Cup in mind: it is running at the Welcke twins.
Ice hockey World Cup 2025: The group games of the DEB team
The German national ice hockey team of women, which, in addition to Luisa and Lilli Welcke, also includes Tabea Botthof as well as Lucia and Tara Schmitz from the Mad Dogs Mannheim, has the following group games at the World Cup in Budweis:
- 09.04.2025 | 11:00 am | Sweden – Germany
- 04/12/2025 | 3:00 p.m. | Norway – Germany
- 04/14/2025 | 11:00 am | Germany – Hungary
- 04/15/2025 | 3:00 p.m. | Germany – Japan
In Budweis you will first meet the DEB selection on Wednesday (09.04.2025, 11:00 a.m.) in Sweden, later in group B Norway, Hungary and Japan. The three best places qualify for the quarter -finals. Then at the latest she came back – this time in spring, when ice hockey is about the really big dreams.
Prize on Wed., 9.4.20225 6:00 a.m., SWR Currently in the morning, SWR Current
