U16 set on a “souvenir” at the Euro­pean Youth Olympic Festival

“Our aim is to take a souvenir home from the tournament that we do not have to pay for,” explains Head Coach Philipp Siutz and he means a medal. A total of eight women’s teams will take part, with Austria facing Finland (22.01), Slovakia (23.01) and Switzerland (25.01) in the preliminary round – all top-8 nations at U18 level.

Gloria Henek, Emma Lintner, Elisa Brunner and Serena Unger are also three players in the squad who recently featured at the U18 World Championship Division IA. Serena Unger will also have the honour of leading the team as captain.

Apart from Gloria Henek, who has played for EHC Winterthur in Switzerland since this season, the players are active in domestic leagues, in some cases also in the men’s U15.

Head Coach Philipp Siutz: “First and foremost, we will focus on ourselves and take it one game at a time. We want to play as aggressively as possible. In analysing our opponents, we identify tendencies seen at the women’s U18 World Championship, as the coaching staffs of the U16 and U18 teams partly overlap. We are definitely not going to the EYOF just to take part; we want to prove that we belong there and can compete.”

Sweden, Czechia, Germany and Italy will compete in Group B. The format sees the respective group winners play for gold, the second-placed teams for bronze, the third-placed teams for 5th place and the fourth-placed teams for 7th place.

EYOF 2023 schedule

Finland vs Austria
Sun, 22 January 2023, 12:00, Spittal/Drau

Slovakia vs Austria
Mon, 23 January 2023, 20:00, Spittal/Drau

Switzerland vs Austria
Wed, 25 January 2023, 12:00

Placement games:

Thu, 26 January 2023 / Fri, 27 January 2023

Austria squad: