All the facts about the Deutschland Cup 2025

On Thursday at 12:15, live on ORF SPORT +, Austria’s players will open this year’s Deutschland Cup with a clash against Slovakia. For the 36th edition, the Deutschland Cup will be held in Landshut for the third consecutive year and, as in previous years, will feature both a men’s and a women’s tournament. For Austria, it is their fourth consecutive participation.

05 November 20252 min read

The Deutschland Cup premiered in 1987. Three nations – Germany, Poland and the then Czechoslovakia – took part. Stuttgart hosted the event in its early years; until 1996, with the exception of 1991, when the Cup was played at the Eissporthalle Frankfurt, at least one game was held in the capital of Baden-Württemberg. In 1993, Ulm, Bietigheim and Pforzheim, and in 1994, Pforzheim and Neu-Ulm, were additional tournament venues.

Alongside the hosts, numerous major ice hockey nations took part in the early years, including Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic, as well as Slovakia, various USSR and Russian selections, plus Sweden, Finland and Canada. In 1994, a DEL All Star Team also took part in the tournament.

After the Deutschland Cup took a break in 1998 and 1999, it was revived in autumn 2000 ahead of Germany’s home World Championship in 2001. The venues have continued to change every few years. In addition to the cities mentioned above, Hannover, Hamburg, Mannheim, Munich, Augsburg and Krefeld have all hosted the Deutschland Cup.

2022 also marked Austria’s debut year at the Deutschland Cup. With wins over Slovakia (OT) and Denmark, Austria immediately finished in 2nd place. A fourth-place finish followed in 2023, and third place in 2024. The hosts are the record winners with a total of 10 titles, followed by Russia with 6.

Since moving to Landshut in 2023, a women’s and a men’s tournament have been held in parallel. With great success, as the DEB reports: in both 2023 and 2024, the magic mark of 20.000 fans was surpassed.

Olympic test for Germany, Slovakia and Latvia

In the current IIHF rankings, Germany (7), Slovakia (9) and Latvia (10) are all in the top 10. Austria follow in 11th place. For the three opponents, the Deutschland Cup represents an important first test on the road to the Olympics.

Peter Schneider, who will lead the national team into the Deutschland Cup as captain, stressed in an interview: “They will use this tournament to test their best players for the Olympics. They will be three incredibly difficult games.”

In 2022, Austria fielded two of today’s leading lights in North America: Marco Kasper and David Reinbacher. Ramon Schnetzer, Bernd Wolf and Paul Huber are Deutschland Cup veterans, having been involved in every appearance so far. Austria’s top scorer to date is Benjamin Baumgartner, who is unable to take part this year, with three goals. He scored all of them in the 2023 3:5 defeat against Germany.