Germany plays for World Cup gold: ice hockey fairy tale in the shadow of football madness

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Germany is delirious. Not primarily because the national ice hockey team advanced to today’s World Cup final against Canada (7:20pm, live SRF2/MySports) with an extra-time victory against the USA, but because the football championship ended in a very dramatic fashion.

If you want to read about the exploits of Harold Kreis’ team in Tampere on German online portals, you first have to read through a wall of articles about Bayern Munich’s 13th consecutive league title, the umpteenth failure of Borussia Dortmund and many more football scrolls.

This shows the importance of ice hockey in a national comparison. But the ice hockey pros use this position to their advantage. They live the role of the underdog with heart and soul. They hardly have pressure from the outside.

“We feel that we are a good team. And not only fighting – also fighting, otherwise it won’t work, but also being able to play against the top countries in a playful way. We don’t have to prove it to ourselves anymore. We feel we have to prove that to the others first,” said captain Moritz Müller (36) after the quarter-final win against Switzerland (3-1). “We have the advantage that we go into every game as an underdog.”

Seider: “Is there anything hotter than that?”

Defender colleague Moritz Seider (22) took the same view after beating the USA (4:3 aet): “We showed during the World Cup that we are an incredibly strong team that may not have the most talent that the newspaper has . We come across our values. We don’t let them get us down. We don’t let them put us off either. There were a lot of people who wrote us off for the World Cup. Now we’re out there playing for gold” said the Detroit Red Wings star. “Is there anything hotter than that?” Against Switzerland he was sent to the shower prematurely after a foul on Gaëtan Haas.

The confidence of the German team was not affected by the three early defeats against Sweden, Finland and the USA. On the contrary. The unfortunate results and the strong performances against the top countries gave a boost. Since then, the Germans have won six games in a row. “We have something rolling,” says overwork hero Freddy Tiffels (28) and asked why it could not be finished today.

No more clean socks

“We have matured as boys and as a team. And now mature enough to say that we also want to become world champions,” said captain Müller. “The key against the big players is to believe that we can play with the big players. Decades ago, the game before that was lost in the dressing room, not on the ice, because the belief in yourself was not there.”

With all the confidence of the underdog, not everyone seems to have counted on the advance to the final weekend in Tampere. “I really packed for many days, but only on Sunday. I have to be honest. I’ve been wearing the same pair of socks for four days now, but it’s already worst,” said NHL forward Nico Sturm (28, San Jose Sharks), who won the Stanley Cup last year with Colorado.

Circle: “What I have in my heart is not a maple leaf”

In retrospect, it seems like a stroke of luck that SCB lured national coach Toni Söderholm to Bern in November. Under his successor Harold Kreis, the Germans have become even stronger and – in contrast to 2021 (1: 2 against Finland) – also jumped over the semi-final hurdle. The first medal since silver in 1953 is certain.

Now it’s against Canada. A special game for the Winnipeg-born German-Canadian circle? “What I have in my heart is not a maple leaf. I’ve been here for so long, I feel 100 percent German,” says the man, who came to Germany at the age of 19 and led Lugano (2006) and the ZSC Lions (2008) to the championship title in Switzerland.

Source : Blick