The direction is right

Created: 11/08/2022, 12:00 p.m

By: Patrick Hilmes

The fans have already been able to inspire in many games: The SC Riessersee players have overcome the botched start of the season and are in third place before the Germany Cup break.

© ANDREAS MAYR

Twelve games have been played in the ice hockey Oberliga Süd, now the German Cup break is coming up for SC Riessersee.

Time for an interim balance.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen –

The squad is promising, the start of the season was less so.

But SC Riessersee has caught on and is in third place in the ice hockey Oberliga Süd before the Germany Cup break.

Time to draw a first interim balance.

What happened until now

After the botched start of the season with three defeats in the first four games, the Riesserseers found themselves where nobody expected them, including themselves: in the bottom of the table.

The SCR had raised a lot and signed numerous well-known players.

And yet the reality was different.

Rosenheim, Höchstadt and also Peiting initially proved to be too strong, or the white-blue as - well, what?

Not too weak.

Too new is more appropriate.

Certainly too arrogant in part.

Because the self-image is great, the demands are high.

They did justice to them for the first time on October 16th.

They really shot the frustration out of their souls.

They had chosen the perfect game for this, the mother of all derbies, the duel with the Tölzer Löwen.

In front of 3253 spectators in Bad Tölz, the Garmisch-Partenkirchner dismantled their archrival according to all the rules of the art and made the wildest dreams of their fans come true.

That was the second prank in a row, four more were to follow - sometimes more, sometimes less exciting.

The awakening in Weiden followed.

The still undefeated industry leader suffered a 1:4 defeat.

But last Sunday, the SCR managed to change lanes again with a 5-2 win over Lindau.

Overall power: Third place, 15 points behind first place, but also four points ahead of seventh place - with one less game played.

satisfaction level

If you listen to Pat Cortina these days, you won't hear any terms like "table", "backlog", "winning streak" or the like.

Are not in the manager's vocabulary - at least at this point in the season.

"After twelve games, the table doesn't say anything." Of course, three points after a game also put a smile on the 58-year-old's face, but Cortina's dictionary differs significantly from that of the sporting general public.

Points, places in the table, wins and losses – the Italo-Canadian doesn't think in these terms.

He uses different words.

Since the beginning of the season, terms like “overall picture”, “consistency”, “modesty”, “acceptance”, “daily work”, “focus” have been in your head.

Monosyllabic but memorable.

The coach wants to see development and progress.

Before the playoffs, he wants to be able to say: Okay, this is a team!

From time to time he has seen one, "but still too rarely".

By this he means that all of his actors are at their maximum or at least at an elevated level of performance at the same time.

"Weiden was such a team," he emphasizes.

The SCR is also going in the right direction.

You can read that from Cortina himself. When he talks about his team, he makes more and more positive statements as the season progresses.

"Because our day-to-day work is good and the players are slowly focusing on the right things."

Strengths and weaknesses

The strengths are obvious: second best power play team, third best man down team, third best defense, second best attack including the two best scorers in the league (Lubor Dibelka and Robin Soudek).

One reason why things are going so well for the two strikers is for Cortina: they know him.

Dibelka from the past, Soudek from last season.

They know what the coach expects of them.

"Robin is probably already walking around," says Cortina, putting two fingers in his ears.

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That is a point that currently makes the difference to the second storm row with Alexander Höller and Lukas Koziol.

The two ex-Rosenheimers always have their moments of glory, but not in the desired number.

"Not yet", says her coach, "they need some time".

You still have to find yourself in the SCR cosmos.

Understand that not everything has to be beautiful, sometimes it can also be dirty.

"You don't have to like everything, but you have to understand and accept it."

On the other side, the criticism continues to ebb away.

The defense makes a much more stable impression than at the beginning of the season.

Simon Mayr has found his form, and the two contingent players Ryker Killins and Ville Hyvärinen give the defensive more and more stability.

At the same time, Cortina complains that too many penalties have been collected so far.

In a league comparison, the SCR is in fifth place in these statistics, but the Riesserseer lost the thread in three games - Höchstadt, Passau, Lindau - due to the penalties.

"We have to cleverly step on the gas." Applies above all to Sam Verelst and Jan Niklas Pietsch - 17 and 14 minutes to think.

And then there's the exploitation of chances and the goalie position.

Daniel Allavena and Michael Boehm are by no means bad goalkeepers, but they haven't pulled off a performance like Weiden's "Wexer" Jaroslav Hübl showed in the game against SCR this year.

Of course, it was also due to the wasteful nature of the white-blue offensive forces.

Conclusion

Exactly these points - including a small portion of consistency - are still missing for SC Riessersee to make it to the top.

But only twelve games have been played, there is still time.

And the direction is right.