Team Europe defeats Sweden in overtime / Final series against Canada
The surprise is perfect: the supposed outsider Team Europe is in the final. The team with the six German players won 3:2 after extra time against Sweden in a thrilling match yesterday evening. In the final series (best-of-three), which begins on Wednesday night (live on SPORT1.55 from 1:XNUMX a.m.), the team led by coach Ralph Krueger will face top favorite Canada.
Team Europe started with commitment and got better and better from minute to minute. The Slovakian teammates in particular stood out. First it was Marian Gaborik who equalized the deficit after a pass from national player Christian Erhoff, then Thomas Tatar, who first put his team ahead 2-1 and then scored the game winner in overtime.
Not just the officials around DEB- and Team Europe President Franz Reindl could not contain himself after the decisive goal, coach Ralph Krueger was also more than enthusiastic, but warned: "It is important that we do not become careless, after all we want to offer Canada and the whole world an exciting final."
After an outstanding preliminary round and a great semi-final, the European selection can be more than proud of itself. After all, no one really expected the ragtag team at the beginning. Team Europe represents eight nations, Germany is represented the most with six players. In addition to the two goalkeepers Thomas Greiss and Philipp Grubauer, the two defenders Christian Erhoff and Dennis Seidenberg as well as the strikers Tobias Rieder and Leon Draisaitl are in the squad.
True to the motto of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Cologne and Paris, "Together for 2017", President Franz Reindl is very familiar with the cooperation of other nations and was extremely positive about the "Team Europe" project from the start: "It is simply sensational how the players from eight nations have developed into an incredibly powerful unit in such a short time. Fantastic, excellent individual performances and a top-class coaching staff made this absolutely unexpected entry into the final, which surprised the ice hockey world, possible. The Rest of Europe team managed to become Team Europe and compete against Canada in the final. The boys are still hungry and give a foretaste of the upcoming 2017 Ice Hockey World Championship in Cologne and Paris."
Coach Krueger, who is very familiar with European ice hockey as a former German national player and long-time coach, sees this tournament not only as an opportunity to finish at the top, but also as a development opportunity for the peripheral European nations: "I am so pleased that the players from the peripheral ice hockey nations have the opportunity to really measure themselves against the best in the world for the first time in their lives and to be competitive on the way to the final. That is not possible if these players appear alone in major tournaments. They are constantly fighting with their teams for relegation or qualification for the Olympic Games. And I am particularly pleased about the fact that participation in what is probably the best-staffed tournament in the world is of great importance for ice hockey itself and our developing nations in particular. I came here with the hope that a few children in their home countries will be inspired to get on the ice and become great NHL players in ten or twelve years. And if that happens when I'm old and retired, I hope that our great performance at this tournament will be partly responsible for that."