Unfortunately not! Ice hockey Linz lost the play-off start at favorite Bozen. The Black Wings weren’t lucky. Instead of slipping over the goal line to make it 1-1, the puck stayed on the line at the end of the second third – and in return Bozen scored to make it 2-0.
At noon, the ice hockey cracks in Linz were served pasta and chicken in the Sheraton Hotel in Bozen, in the evening the South Tyrolean foxes really wanted to eat the wings in the nearby “Eiswelle”: The one with a legionary armada (10 imports, 6 naturalized dual citizens and only 6 Italians), the winner of the basic round, was rather freaked out after an eight-day break instead of being rusty. The HCB ran into the ears of the Linzers, who were building on red-white-red (with 7 imports, dual citizenship Brian Lebler and 13 Austrians). Linzer, supported by strong goalie Tirroenen at the back, could hardly get stuck in the offensive zone in front of Bozen’s vocal fan wall – and conceded the 0:1 (14th) even outnumbered by Mitch Hults. In section 2, the outsider showed his respect, created a lot of offensive himself, scored goals – and one by Romig even on the goal line, where it came to rest (39th)! And as if that wasn’t enough, instead of the 1-1 deserved at the time, Hults gave the 0-2 in return. “Not good enough to start” “Sport can be that brutal,” sighed Emilio Romig, whose The team couldn’t score against Bozen, who were concerned about managing their lead in the final third – 0:2. “Our start wasn’t good enough. But I’m mostly satisfied with how we presented ourselves in the second half of the game,” said coach Philipp Lukas. His team has home advantage for the first time in the best-of-7 quarter-final series on Friday – and after the performance in South Tyrol, with the fans behind them, they can count on something.
