Two wins from two games – that’s what the current statistics of the German U16 national team look like. From August 23rd to 27th, the junior team of the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund e. V (DEB) as part of a course in Füssen, a 3-nation tournament in which the neighboring countries Austria and Switzerland took part.
Collin Danielsmeier (head coach) and Norbert Weber (assistant coach) represented the U16 national coaches Robert Schroepfer and Robin Beckers who were unable to take part. New to the team DEB was also the first time that former national player Dimitri Pätzold, who ended his career after the previous season, took over the position of coach for the goalkeepers during the course. After the last U16 summer course in Füssen at the beginning of August, 20 players and three goalkeepers were nominated for the tournament. Mateu Späth (EC Bad Tölz) led the German junior team as captain. The young talent players Maximilian Bleicher (EV Füssen) and David Lewandowski (Düsseldorfer EG) assisted him as assistants.
He completed a total of five training sessions DEB-Junior team at the Federal Training Center in Füssen. Already in the test match, the German U16 team impressed with a strong performance against Switzerland and secured victory in the preparatory phase with a confident 5-2. And this was also possible during the tournament DEB-Young talent team build on this achievement. The German U16 national team also won the second match against Switzerland with 5:1 (goals: Lewandowski, Späth, R. Griva, Zwickl, Ziergiebel) and the encounter against Austria with 7:0 (goals: Kessler, R. Griva , Bleicher, Schlosser, Späth, Schäfer, G. Griva). The twins Gustavs and Rihards Griva were also named top scorers in the tournament with four points each.
The next event for the German U16 national team will take place in Finland from October 10th to 16th. That's where it will be DEBteam will take part in the 2-nation tournament in Vierumäki and play three international matches as part of it.
Deputy U16 national coach Collin Danielsmeier: “The team was able to impress throughout the entire tournament. Not just the results, but how the team presented themselves on and off the ice was very impressive. We have a wide range of very good players this year, which is not a given, and we were therefore able to constantly put the opponents under pressure with four lines and high tempo. I had so much fun working with these guys.”
U16 goalkeeper coach Dimitri Pätzold: “The focus of training this week was on positional play and reading the game. The boys implemented that well in the games, because all three goalkeepers played very well and influenced the momentum in the game with great saves in the important phases.”