At the World Cup of Hockey, Team Europe wants to be more than an outsider
With Stanley Cup winner Dennis Seidenberg from the Boston Bruins and German shooting star Leon Draisaitl from the Edmonton Oilers of the North American professional league NHL, two German players are in the provisional squad of Team Europe for the highly endowed World Cup of Hockey 2016 (17 September to 1 October) in Toronto/Canada. For Franz Reindl, President of the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) and at the same time President of Team Europe, the nomination of the German duo is “a particularly great pleasure because they made it into the squad in the first round from a pool of over 50 players.” In the following interview, Reindl talks about, among other things, the strict selection criteria, the collaboration with the coaching and staff team and the chances of the other German NHL players also being nominated.
Mr. Reindl, today the first sixteen players from each participating team in the World Cup of Hockey were named. Two players from Germany, Dennis Seidenberg and Leon Draisaitl, made it into the Team Europe squad. As President of the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund and President of Team Europe, that must have made you doubly happy?
“First of all, I strictly separate the two positions and am happy about every player who made the TOP 16. Over 250 scouting reports were evaluated. As DEB The president is of course extremely happy! We have a good group of German players in the NHL like Christian Ehrhoff, Tobias Rieder, Korbinian Holzer, Tom Kühnhackl, Thomas Greis and Philipp Grubauer that we can rely on. I’m particularly pleased for Dennis and Leon that they made it into the squad in the first round, after all we had to choose from a pool of over 50 players.”
Will we be able to read more German names among the 1 players when the squad is finally named on June 23st?
“Unfortunately I can't say that yet, but we have five professional scouts who have constantly sent us, Miroslav Satan as general manager, Ralph Krueger as head coach and me, scouting reports. The selection of players is very large and we are working at full speed to put the team together according to our ideas.”
What exactly do your ideas look like here?
“We have a professional and experienced coaching and staff team, all of whom have the clear goal of not just wanting to be outsiders at this tournament. So you can speak here of an extreme performance society, so to speak. We looked at players in all competitions available to us, evaluated them and decided that we not only need good players but above all personalities in our team who can quickly form a unit from many nationalities and pursue the same goal. When it comes to personnel decisions, in the end we always all agree on the staff, so you can say that the final squad will be a joint decision after a long process.
For some of the players, like perhaps Dennis Seidenberg and Leon Draisaitl, Olympic qualification is coming up shortly before the World Cup of Hockey. So there isn't much time left for the team to prepare together.
“It's the same for everyone, although the players who take part in the Olympic qualification are already full of energy. We will meet directly after the three qualifying tournaments on September 4th / 5th in Quebec City. Before the cup starts on September 17th, we will play three more preparation games. Twice against the North American selection (Quebec City and Montreal) and once against Sweden (Washington, DC).”
While we're talking about sports: What do you think are the chances of making it to the semi-finals in a group with Canada, the USA and the Czech Republic?
"Our goal is to cause surprises and get as far as possible. I am sure that we have the potential to do so. In addition, we have a highly motivated, absolute professional as our head coach in Ralph Krueger. We started from scratch a year ago, so to speak, we have a clean slate, and not just in terms of sport, and we have already built something really great up to this point. Everyone who is working on this project is highly motivated and 100 percent ready to give their all."
What do you think will be the key to achieving the goal you mentioned?
“In such a short and extremely high-quality tournament like this, it is always important to find each other quickly as a team. Especially for Team Europe. We have enough creativity, talent and speed. I think that will be the crucial point. Because all the other teams will also be well positioned and prepared.”