There is potential to be exploited, especially potential for improvement. Promoting young talent ice hockey players is high on the list of national coaches. That's why the coaches of the women's national team and the young talent national junior teams have decided on a new measure.
For the first time, 30 of the best U16 ice hockey players in the country met at the Federal Performance Center in Füssen last weekend to take part in a screening. Women's national coach Thomas Schädler and U18 women's national coach Franziska Busch were invited to this premiere. The latter then took charge of the three jam-packed days. She was supported by Marius Riedel (DEL2 club supervisor), Anja Strohmenger (representative of LEV NRW), Stefan Klingner (state coach Sachsen-Anhalt, assistant coach U16 women), Matthias Fuchs (state coach North Association), Christian Lorch (state coach Baden-Württemberg), Sascha (goalkeeper coach), two athletic trainers and a representative of the Bavarian Ice Hockey Association (BEV).
The three days in Füssen were the second stage of the funding. In the first step, the regional associations had their regular base training units or specially scheduled sightings in the north, east, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Bayern used to select players who should be given a chance to show themselves and then gain important information for their development in Füssen.
U18 national coach Franziska Busch explains to us what happened in Füssen.
The division: "We divided the girls into two teams of 15, which in turn had two separate coaching teams. This allowed us to introduce a competitive element, as the teams played against each other twice on days 2 and 3, and also allowed us to work with them much more individually and directly."
The training: "All players completed an athletic test. The focus of the first training session was to convey our principles, for example, how we play a 2-on-1. On the second day, we worked position-specifically and focused on tactical aspects, such as working in the defensive zone or forechecking. This was also done in several theory sessions and with the help of video training."
A conclusion: "This measure was the first of its kind for us in the Women's Young Talent program. The aim of the measure was to get to know the players, to be able to assess the current status of their training and to give the players an idea of how we work, what we expect from the players and what the requirements are in the women's national teams.
The players were able to confirm their performance from the screenings and worked very well and hard over the three intensive days, even though there was a lot of input and some things were new.
It was also nice to see that the most recent vintage, the 2009s, which we saw properly for the first time, also fully met our expectations.”
The future: "We will have some of the players on the U18 training course next weekend because they convinced us. In the U16 area, it was a successful end to the season, which should motivate the players to work well in summer training because they know that they have the chance to show themselves and be seen through their respective national association.