By Boris Rousson
bo@prohockey.de

Hamburg, Germany - Hello again, and welcome to this new season of the Spider’s Web, an insider look at the DEL and the Hamburg Freezers, as seen from behind the mask. Once again, I will offer you a different look at everything happening on and off the ice, and I will try to make it as interesting as possible.

A lot of things have happened this summer, and especially since August 11th, since we had our first on-ice practice. Here is what I have to say...

ABOUT TRAINING CAMP

It was hard! I don’t know if my age is catching up with me, but I found this training camp to be very hard, especially the first 20 days. The practices were hard, we had a few more off-ice trainings as in the previous seasons, and the results of our games may be the consequence of the hard training. But I learned since I am playing hockey that preseason games are seldom a good indication of the real value of a team. We have had quite a few injuries, which forced us to play our games with only 3 units more often than not. We experienced with different systems and strategies, which will make us only better in the long run in adapting to all the different situations of a game. We played all our games (except one) on the road, never easy to do, including 3 games in 4 night in Sweden, and 3 games in 2 and a half days here in Germany, all with a small roster. Don’t think that I am making excuses: we did not play well. We gave up too many goals, we didn’t score enough, our special teams struggled and our discipline wasn’t so good. All these issues we will have to address before the season starts.

ABOUT OUR NEW PLAYERS

This season again, a lot of new faces will be wearing the Black and Baby Blue of the Freezers. We added experience and leadership with Jürgen Rumrich (who will be co-captain with Smash). We got some speed and a lot of potential in Brandon Reid, a spectacular offensive player who should become a big fan favorite. Speed and physical presence are the best qualities of Craig Johnston, who is coming over straight from the NHL. Also on offense, we added Nils Antons from the Eisbären and Christopher Oravec from Augsburg. On defense, Alan Letang will give us good speed and a complete game, while Jochen Molling is returning for a second stint with the Freezers. Sasa Martinovic looks like he will play a little of offense and a little of defense, something that is always useful on a team. And finally, I have a new partner in goal in Hardy Wild, who has played well in training camp and will definitely push me in the same way that Küni did so well over the last five years.

We were all a little surprised to lose Greiger to Kassel, but I guess something had to be done after the not so good preseason.

ABOUT OUR POKAL LOSS IN KAUFBEUREN

When you play a team from the minors, games almost always follow of these two patterns:

The DEL team scores early, gains some momentum and the Second Bundesliga team fights hard but comes up short.

Or the Second Bundesliga team scores early, the DEL team gets frustrated, their goalie plays really good, then it is a fight to the finish.

The second screenplay is pretty much what happened in Kaufbeuren, as we faced a highly motivated team, a young promising goalie that was in training camp with us, and we got beat, fair and square, 3-0 by the Kaufbeuren Buron Jokers. At least, we were not the only DEL team to lose as both Frankfurt and Mannheim, two other top DEL teams lost their games also.

ABOUT THE NHL-LOCKOUT

I don’t know which side I am on in the labour dispute between the NHLPA and the owners of the NHL teams. The one thing I know is that the locked-out players coming over to play in the DEL will make an impact for sure on the teams that are willing to take the chance to sign them. Especially with the German players that don’t require to use a foreigner’s spot. So Marco Sturm in Ingolstadt and Jochen Hecht in Mannheim will be attractions for these teams. I am curious to see what some teams will do if they struggle early and the lockout drags on. It seems that we should not expect a quick settlement.

ABOUT THE DEL

I think the league has reached a new level of parity this season, and the season should be really exciting. I think all the teams have improved, and for playing in Wolfsburg in the preseason, it will be a difficult place to win there, so every game is important, even early in the season.

Let it begin!!