The first Corona fright is over, Germany’s ice hockey team feels ready for the next medalic coup before starting to the Olympic tournament. On Saturday, the most important defender in the squad of National coach Toni Söderholm in Beijing met: The long-standing NHL professional Korbinian Holzer traveled after surviving Corona infection and is likely to be negative PCR test on Sunday for the first time with the team of the Olympia second of 2018 work out. “In there is everything,” said the two-time Stanley Cup winner Tom Kühnhackl from Skelleftea AIK from Sweden. “Nobody can expect it to finally start. We have a great troop here.”
Other CT values as nuisance
After the second unit in Beijing on Saturday was pounded. This time, Defender Marcel Brandt (Straubing) and the striker Daniel Pietta (Ingolstadt) and Stefan Lobl of the Kühnhackl-Club Skelleftea. In the trio after arrival on Thursday in China Corona tests were initially positive. Presumably, because with Olympia another CT value as in Germany decides a positive case. Only after the nightstep was all considered negative. “We all known us that the CT values are different here. Accordingly, it was not surprising that it has recently been infected that had elevated values,” said striker Patrick Hager from EHC Red Bull Munich.
The lower the CT value is as the contagious one person applies. In Germany, a Corona test is considered positive, in the Olympic Winter Games already under 35. In China, the border is otherwise reached at under 40. The hours after arrival, Hager called “in a sense” as a “shock moment”: “You really do not want anyone to start in the tournament.”
Only briefly memories of Handball EM
In one or the other, memories of the German handball players are likely to have prevailed, whose missed semi-final feed was overshadowed by an immense corona outbreak in the expired European championship. “We realized that this case can occur. If you fly over here, you also have to be ready in the head for you to catch you,” said Hager, who had already heard in 2018 to the silver team in Pyeongchang.
The DEB was also nervous in dealing with the topic nervous and named neither the names of the first positive players still tested by Holzer as a lagger. The dissolution was only on Saturday, when everything had turned out to be shocked. Demonstrative then focused on the view of the first tournament game on Thursday against record-Olympic champion Canada, which is considered as defeated without his NHL stars as in the inspiring 4: 3 in the Olympic semifinals of Pyeongchang.
Draisaitl and his hope for gold
“When the tournament starts, the focus will be away from Corona,” said Hager. In particular, storm colleague Kühnhackl can barely expect his Olympic premiere. The 30-year-old son of the German Ice Hockey Idols Erich Kühnhackl – 1976 Bronze winner – had made the silver sensation in South Korea perfectly through his decisive goal in the 2017 qualification in Latvia.
As then NHL player, the following Olympia participation was denied him. The North American Profiliga, which does not release your players because of the pandemic for Beijing, was not ready for an interruption of the season in 2018 for economic reasons. So Superstar Leon Draisaitl has so far been brought to his first Olympic participation. The 26-year-old world-class the door of the Edmonton Oilers dares the deb selection now. “I’m the biggest fan of guys, I’m looking forward to it, it will be a great tournament,” Draisaitl said at “Sky” and expressed the hope “that they come home with a gold medal at the end.”