IIHF – German U18 women return

If the ice hockey world learned anything in Ritten, Italy, this past week, it’s that the teams participating at the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women’s World Championship Division I Group A are as close as ever in their development. Despite the wear and tear of five games in a seven-day span, 12 games were decided by a margin of two goals or less. Six of them were decided by one goal, four of those games having first been decided in overtime.

With this kind of intensity and a situation where even the eventually relegated nation kept three of their five games very tight, winning one in the process, Germany couldn’t help but be extremely deserving of gaining promotion.

But everyone had to wait until the final day of action to find that out.

For eventual tourney champion Germany, things got off to a wonderful start with 3-1 victories over Norway and Hungary. They were followed by a 2-0 win over neighbouring rival Austria, in which the second goal was first pumped in in the 59th minute of play. Since Italy managed a 1-0 OT win against Austria followed by a 4-1 win over Norway and a tight 2-0 victory over France, Game 4 of the tournament for both teams proved to be the decisive bout. And the game featured all the suspense you’d want to have from two worthy opponents, seeing the decisive, only goal scored via the shootout by Germany’s Emmi-Lee Hanack.

“We knew that playing the hometown Italians was going to be difficult. We knew they’d have a lot of fans in the stands who’d be emotional and loud,” states Germany coach Franziska Busch. “It was a very intensive game. You could really see how much it meant to both teams, knowing how decisive the outcome could be.

“The game ended 0-0, which doesn’t happen all that often and the longer that game remained scoreless, you just knew that any mistake here or there could prove deadly. As such, I’m very proud of how the team pushed through to the end. Penalty shots can go either way and to get that win after having been shorthanded in overtime… The team carried out our game plan and did all the coaching staff asked of them. Their efforts were rewarded with the winning goal in the shootout.”

After the thrilling 1-0 shootout victory for Germany over Italy, it all came down to the last game of the tournament for Italy, which had to defeat upstart Hungary in regulation time to hop over Germany in the standings for the moment. Of course, that would be before Germany played its final game against France,…