By Boris Rousson
bo@prohockey.de

Hamburg, Germany - We had a good game and a bad game last weekend, but that was enough to keep our 5th position in the standings. We struggled in Augsburg, but reacted with a very good game against Nürnberg.

Foggy night in Augsburg

On Friday night, in Augsburg, we had to battle the elements as much as we did our opponents. A pretty thick blanket of fog covered the rink for about half the game, making it pretty difficult to see the puck. At times, I could not see past the central red line, which made it hard to follow the puck when Augsburg was coming out of their end for example. We started the game OK, but allowed the first goal again, on a giveaway in our end on which Ronnie Arendt jumped, spinned around and shot the puck through a little opening on my blocker side. We started the second period on the good foot too, and tied it at one on Imper's blast from the top of the circle, over the glove of J.F. Labbé. Augsburg took the lead again, on a similar goal, this time from Fortier, who spinned around too before shooting also on my blocker side. The fans were still cheering the goal's announcement in the stadium when we tied it again only 13 seconds later, when Robert Francz redirected a pass from J.D. (Jim Dowd, his first point in the DEL) behind Labbé. The third period was all Augsburg, they scored two goals, including the game-winner on a power-play in the second minute already. They were the hungrier team on Friday, and they deserved to win.

Good game at home

But we came back strong on Sunday against Nürnberg at home, cashing in on our power-play opportunities early in the game and escaping with a 3-2 win. I find that Nürnberg is always a fun team to play against, they play a very high intensity game, always in our face, very aggressive and it always make for an interesting game. No trapping, no 5 man back, they just go, go, go all the time. We had the first 4 power-play chances of the game, including a long 5 vs 3, on which we finally took the lead, when Jacko beat Adam Svoboda on the stick side from the top of the crease, on a nice pass from Hynesie. Nürnberg also used their power-play, their first, to score, when Petr Fical persevered and finally slid the puck under my pads on his third attempt. We did not let that goal affect us too long, and Craig Johnson completed a nice face-off play from his linemates Brandon Reid and Jurgen Rumrich with a deadly wrist shot right under the cross bar on the short side. We started the second period on the power-play again, and Jacko [Jacek Plachta] scored, again. He took the rebound from Alan Letang's point shot and buried it in the goal. Both teams had chances to score in the period, but no results. The third period was a lot harder though, with Nürnberg applying all kinds of pressure. It paid off around the halfway part of the period when Pascal Trepanier fired a shot through a screen to bring them within one goal. But we kept our composure and were able to deny them the equalizer, even if they outshot us 18-4 in the third frame. It was a very satisfactory win for us, our first against a team from the upper part of the standings. And also a good day for our assistant coach Schmitty, who got the win against his old team, as a head coach due to the suspension to Kinger.

In the spotlight

There were two participants in the weekend games who had a bigger impact than they should have. Both referees (Roland Aumüller in Augsburg, and Willy Schimm at home) gave an obvious advantage to the home teams in power-play situations: 9-3 for Augsburg on Friday, 7-3 for us on Sunday. Coincidence?? It was the first games this weekend that the refs were really a factor for us in a game, except maybe for the first period in Frankfurt where we played 5 on 5 for about three minutes... No wonder that the coaches and players were arguing a lot. Our coach Dave King was suspended for a game after Aumüller gave him a game misconduct towards the end of the game. These were not our first problems with him, and it probably won't be our last.

Polar Bears and Penguins this weekend

The Berlin Eisbären will make their first visit to Hamburg on Friday night, and they seem to have their things going now, after a "struggling" start, according to their usual standards anyway. They added some offense from the blue line in Derek Walser and Shawn Heins, and kept their core of forwards who dominated the league the past two seasons, so they are definitely a dangerous team. And then on Sunday, we travel to Krefeld to face another dangerous team in their own way: the Krefeld Pinguine - a team that just fired their head coach Mario Simioni and is looking to get out of the basement. They impressed me in training camp when they beat us 3-0 in Krefeld without goalie Robert Müller and defender Guy Lehoux.