The German women's national ice hockey team around Freising goalkeeper Sandra Abstreiter is aiming for the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
A win in the last group game should be a matter of form.
Toronto/Erding – In contrast to the men, the women's Bundesliga season is already over.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Memmingen Indians became champions.
The World Cup is currently taking place in Canada, and the German team also includes five former youngsters from Erding: goalkeeper Sandra Abstreiter from Freising, defender Tabea Botthof and strikers Franziska Feldmeier, Bernadette Karpf and Celina Haider.
The goal is to get into the quarter-finals and stay in Group A.
DEB team undeterred by early deficit in game one
The start was promising: Germany defeated Sweden 6-2 after the DEB team was already 0-1 behind after ten seconds.
Haider and Feldmeier each scored twice, Abkampfer held strong.
Germany suffered a 3-0 defeat against Finland after a tough battle.
The following day, however, there was a 3-0 win against France, in which Abkampfer was able to celebrate their first shutout.
With six points, the door to the quarter-finals is wide open.
(By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular Freising newsletter.)
"The start against Sweden wasn't so good, of course," said the goalkeeper about the early goal.
"But we didn't let ourselves be disturbed." In addition, the DEB team had three superior numbers in the first third.
One was used when Feldmeier scored to make it 1-1.
What was also important according to the Freisinger: "Our defenders really blocked a lot of shots.
The Swedes have now closed the gap to 2:3, but we didn't let the rapid deficit or the second goal unsettle us."
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(back, from left) Tabea Botthof, Sandra Abstreiter from Freising and Celina Haider as well as (front, from left) Franzi Feldmeier and Berni Karpf have a common past in Erding.
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"I'm really relieved and happy that we showed ourselves from our best side right from the start," said Botthof, "after the past tournaments were a bit wormy and a lot of things didn't work out." Played with it The 22-year-old from Erding is looking forward to missing out on the Olympic qualification for Beijing and the 2022 World Cup, when Germany was lucky to stay up in Division A with a 3-2 win over Denmark at the last second.
The quarter-finals should be fixed against Hungary
“The Sweden game gave us a real boost.
We've developed a strong squad and a really good team spirit," affirmed Abstreiter and Feldmeier.
Coach Thomas Schädler's team confirmed their good performance against Finland – despite the defeat.
But Botthof admitted: "We haven't quite reached the level of Finland yet."
The third game on Easter Sunday against France, which suffered a hefty 1:14 pack against Finland and lost to Hungary 2:4, fell more under the category of mandatory victory.
In the end there was a well-deserved 3-0 for Germany, which was actually not enough.
So the focus was on yesterday's game against Hungary (5 p.m.) (the game was not over at the time of going to press for this local edition).
The last step into the quarter-finals should only have been a matter of form for the German ice hackers.
BY WOLFGANG KRZIZOK
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