Ice barbarians advance in finals series – “that was a fight”
"That was a fight!"Said mads christensen after the final siren. Dane, who had slipped into berlin’s paradesturm as an emergency lottery pick, was given the lead with the goal going out (41. Minute) to the man of the evening. Richie regehr (52) made it 2:0.) – although he can hardly push properly due to a hoof injury. The icemen fought more for success than they earned it.
"For sure, it’s a character performance with the losses," emphasized berlin’s national player frank hordler. The guests from the kurpfalz region scored 37 times on the goal of ice barbarian goalkeeper rob zepp, who held his own with the energetic help of his sacrificially fighting defenders. "Zepp made the difference," praised berlin coach don jackson. The second game of the best-of-five series will be played in mannheim on wednesday. "It’s our stadium, that’s where we play our advantage and then we see how berlin looks," said eagle captain marcus kink.
For two-thirds of the game, the icemen were noticeably missing goal-scorer busch. He actually forms the best forward line with darin olver and barry tallackson, but in the last semifinal he was attacked by straubing’s goalkeeper barry brust bose with the bat to the head. On saturday, busch was able to train completely with the team, but in the end, the team doctors did not give him the green light.
Therefore, it was the hour of christensen, who put the puck in the third period after an assist from barry tallackson with the skate into the goal. The referees used video evidence and awarded the goal to the ice players. "Sometimes a goal like that is just the thing to really hurt the opponent," said the dane.
Previously, the remaining strikers of the home side – in addition to busch, the long-term injured stefan ustorf and denis pederson as well as the suspended andre rankel were also missing – had repeatedly failed to score against the strong mannheim keeper fredrick brathwaite. "We saw two strong goalies," admitted goalie christensen.
There was no sign of the much-praised "dream final" between the two top german teams of recent years, especially in the second round in front of 14,200 fans in the sold-out berlin arena. Successful offensive actions were few and far between, the game became more and more disjointed. "You can tell that we’re missing important players," said icebaren forward laurin braun during the second intermission.
The mannheim team was able to draw on its full complement of players and even managed to put former nhl pro nicholas dimitrakos on the tribune as a foreigner in excess of his number. In the end, too many shorthanded games drew the guests’ teeth, as coach harold kreis noted: "the penalty times got us a little out of concept."Symptomatic: the second goal against was scored by defender regehr, who shot from the blue line, but not at all powerfully, while berlin was outnumbered.
