Ice Pirates aim for second place

Created: 03/11/2022, 10:00 am

By: Georg Brennauer

Pure joy: The two villagers Christian Göttlicher (left) and Josef Folger, who scored the 1-0, celebrate the 5-1 derby victory against the Erding Gladiators.

© Christian Riedel

There is a great atmosphere at ESC Dorfen.

Dorfen – The surprising 5:1 victory of the Dorfener ESC-Puckjäger against arch-rival Erding Gladiators gave the Ice Pirates additional motivation for the rest of this round.

"Now we want to achieve second place behind the district townspeople," emphasizes ESC ice hockey boss Manfred Detterbeck.

To do this, the ice pirates have to be as successful as possible in the last three games: tonight at 8 p.m. at EC Pfaffenhofen and at home on Sunday at 5.30 p.m. against ERV Schweinfurt and a week later, on Sunday, March 20th at 5.30 p.m. for the season finale against the VfE Ulm/Neu-Ulm.

In today's game in Pfaffenhofen, the Icehogs, who are lower in the table and still have five games to play, will certainly want to show their teeth again at the Ice Pirates after the 0:6 defeat two weeks ago in Dorfen.

The Steer team is second after nine games with 16 points and a goal difference of 39:29, while the Ilmstadt team have only five points after seven games and a goal difference of 17:37.

However, according to the recent decision of the Bavarian Ice Sports Association (BEV), according to which there is no relegation, the Icehogs can actually play freely.

The front row with top striker Nick Endress and the two German-Slovaks Jacub and David Felsoci is particularly dangerous for the Pfaffenhofen team.

With the Ilmstadt team, who started the season without a coach after Elmar Boiger's very short guest appearance and were then coached by Andreas Bentenrieder for a short transition period, Steve Pepin is currently on the gang.

Ex-Höchstädter Nicola Henseleit and Thomas Hingel, who also used to work for ESC Dorfen, have alternated between the posts.

In the previous three games with ERV Schweinfurt, the ice pirates were able to assert themselves three times.

From the main round there are two overtime wins (7:6 in Dorfen and 6:5 in Schweinfurt) as well as a 4:2 in Schweinfurt in the relegation round.

The 33-year-old Canadian Dylan Hood (14 points) leads the scorer list in Lower Franconia ahead of Marcel Grüner (8) and Christian Masel (7).

The second foreigner position at the Mighty Dogs is occupied by Canadian Joshua Bourne.

All in all, Schweinfurt's trainer Andreas Kleid has good, balanced blocks.

A difficult task awaits the ice pirates.