Fourth camp in Telfs

Last weekend, Austria’s national team was already given a taste of its major target for this summer. Slovakia will be the favourites to beat for a place at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in the final round of Olympic qualifying from 26 to 29 August. In the last two internationals in Piestany, the Slovaks showed their strengths but were unable to really score at 5-on-5.

"At even strength, we performed our tasks very well and were solid defensively. However, we had problems on the power play and penalty kill, as many players still need to learn how to deal with these situations. At international level, you have no time to hesitate and think, but have to act quickly," explains head coach Roger Bader.

The next opportunity for the very young national team, with an average age of 24,5 years, to measure itself against an A-level nation in terms of intensity and pace comes in the next few days. The fourth training camp of this spring begins in Telfs on Wednesday, followed on Saturday and Sunday by two games against Italy in Bozen. Italy, who will travel to the IIHF World Championship in Latvia after these games, will face Austria with their full World Championship squad.

Manuel Ganahl and Lukas Haudum of champions EC-KAC will join the squad, while Peter Schneider will recover this week from the injury he suffered in Slovakia. Lukas Kainz recently used his injury lay-off to return to training and will replace Stefan Gaffal, who must end his season early due to injury. This leaves head coach Bader with 27 players available for the two clashes with Italy.