Last Friday the traditional Hlinka Gretzky Cup 2025 for the U18 national team of the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund (DEBThe team led by U18 national coach Andreas Becherer finished eighth in the high-class international tournament, which took place last week in the Czech Republic (Brno) and Slovakia (Trenčín).
The Preliminary round of Group B had to DEB-selection were defeated by the favored teams from Sweden (0:10) and the USA (1:8). Against co-host Slovakia (0:1), the approximately 3.000 spectators witnessed a much closer match, which was only decided by a late goal from the DEB-selection ended very close.
In the seventh-place match against Switzerland, the German team fell behind 0-3 halfway through the game, but then fought back with great effort to 2-3 and were close to equalizing. However, in the final phase, it was the Swiss who ultimately made the final score (2-5) with two empty-net goals. Last Saturday, the DEBselection began their journey back to Germany – with many insights from this year's tournament in their luggage.
U18 national coach Andreas Becherer draws the following conclusion from his first action as head of the U18 team"What we really liked was the team's willingness to learn and their determination. Players and staff quickly bonded as a unit on and off the ice. This is an important prerequisite for our continued cooperation during the upcoming season. However, we must also acknowledge that we had some shortcomings in our game, which our strong opponents skillfully exploited. Here, we see that we still have a lot of work to do to position ourselves so that we can ultimately compete at the upcoming U18 World Championship in spring 2026 and achieve our goals. It will therefore be important to closely monitor and support the development of our young players at the clubs so that we can take a step forward in our next initiative. To this end, we will thoroughly analyze all Hlinka Gretzky Cup games and further process our findings for implementation over the course of the season."
Results U18 National Team Hlinka Gretzky Cup 2025
11.08.2025 In Germany – Sweden 0:10
12.08.2025 I Slovakia – Germany 1:0
13.08.2025 I USA – Germany 8:1
15.08.2025 | Switzerland – Germany 5:2 (match for 7th place)