The next World Cup cracker will take place at 16.15:30 p.m. / Other dimensions: Around XNUMX million viewers are sitting in front of their televisions in Russia today / LANXESS arena also full of away fans
Record world champion, top favorite, ice hockey great power! There can never be enough superlatives for the Russian national ice hockey team. Whatever you call the opponent: the selection of the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund (DEB) faces one of the world's best teams today at the 2017 IIHF Home World Championship (16.15:1 p.m., live on SPORTXNUMX). “Of course we are not the favorites, but we will look for our chances,” said Felix Schütz.
“Sbornaja” has indicated in the tournament so far that she is once again one of the top favorites. Russia started off by winning against Sweden 2-1 after a penalty shootout, and yesterday the pitiful Italians were put in their place 10-1. The audience loudly celebrated their heroes. The Russian ones Fans are represented in large numbers in the LANXESS arena, so the match against Germany today will probably also be about who is “in charge” in the stands.
National coach Marco Sturm had training in the morning after giving his boys a full day off yesterday. It is to be expected that the coach will send the same squad into the race as in the first two games. If there were to be any personnel changes, it would only be because of the arrival of Christian Ehrhoff. Sturm only wants to decide whether a deployment makes sense after consulting with the defender and the medical department before the match.
While the German TV channel SPORT1 has had very strong ratings for ice hockey with peaks of 1 and 1,8 million viewers when broadcasting the Ice Hockey World Cup, the dimensions in Russia are completely different. “Today and tomorrow are public holidays in Russia. We expect around 25 to 30 million TV viewers for the game between Germany and Russia,” said Olga Chernosvitova from First Russian Television: “But we hope for more.”
Even another TV station and online portals are also reporting extensively on today's duel. The Fans Russia likes it. On the most important Russian holiday, “Victory Day,” even seats in sports bars are becoming scarce. Tables should be reserved early, according to Russian media.