MUNCIH, Germany – This first game started at 2 pm, tourney officials put the start of the weekend games on early times to be more family friendly than previous years. And it helped, because there were 5500 fans in the hall.
There were about 100 fans from Slovakia who could cheer about the first goal in the game. Tomas Starosta picked up a pass from Rene Skoliak and the player from Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk in the KHL finished with a nice shot above the shoulder of German goalie Jochen Reimer.
With Reimer and Felix Petermann, two players from the local EHC Munich were on the ice for Germany. The third one is Noah Clarke who plays for the USA.
It was not a good day for the Munich players. In the 15th minute, Radoslav Tibor put a wrist shot from the blue line and Reimer let the puck under his elbow for the goal.
The Germans had problems with the aggressive defense of the Slovakian team. But Slovakia helped the German with two penalties in just two minutes to fuel a comeback.
Michael Wolf didn’t let this chance go away, when he scored from the far post after a pass from Kai Hospelt.
Also in the first minutes of the second period, the Germans tried to get take advantage of the offensive style of play of the eastern Europeans.
When Wolf got a pass to the Slovakian blue line, he was stopped by a drag down penalty and awarded a penalty shot. This was the big chance to come back in the game, but he missed it with a shot on the leg of goalie Libor Hudacek.
This penalty mirrored the whole game. Germany was not able to score because of Hudacek and the Slovakians used their chances.
Shortly before the horn for the second break, Marcel Hossa shot from the blue line, and the puck used a small, not even visible gap to get into the net.
With the start of the last period, Germany pushed and pushed to the goal of Hudacek, but the goalie from Slovan Bratislava denied one chance after another. Hudacek had no chance on a two-on-one situation with Daniel Pietta and Nici Goc. Goc scored to make it 2-3 for Slovakia.
But his forwards weren’t hesitating and just one minute later, Milan Bartovic scored during a power play and rebuilt the two goal lead.
Just 30 seconds later, Michel Miklik increased the lead with his third goal in the tournament.
The Germans could come to 3-5 when Hossa scored his second goal in the game, the result was finished.
With this 3-6 win, Slovakia would be champion of the Deutschland-Cup, if there was no winner between Switzerland and USA after 60 minutes.
The second game of the day started really fast. Both teams were very offensive and the result was 3 goals in the first 5 minutes. Team USA scored first when Marty Sertich pushed the puck through 3 players in the slot. But the Swiss in the person of Damien Brunner copied this style of scoring and did equalizer. And Dino Wieser did the same after 5 minutes for the 2-1 lead for the alp republic. After these 5 minutes, both team started to defend and there were no other goals until the fifth minute in the second period. Brian Salcido did the equalizer after a pass of Ryan Lasch and Sergio Somma.
After this goal, both teams neutralized each other especially in the last period when both teams started getting rough and always got penalties for both teams. Despite of the number of penalties, the Swiss team pushed for the lead but didn’t get the 3-2 score and with this the chance to win the Deutschland-Cup at the last day against Slovakia.
The game went to the shoot-out and there was it again Damian Brunner who scored the only goal and made Slovakia the winner of the Deutschland-Cup 2011.
Robin.Hilger@prohockeynews.com
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