Red Bull Munich qualified for next year's Champions Hockey League by finishing second in the DEL’s regular season. Their captain, Michael Wolf, is also captain of the German national team as they get ready for the World Championship.
by Robert Heppekausen
VOJENS, Denmark – Michael Wolf has had an interesting season. After playing with the Iserlohn Roosters for nine years he transferred to Red Bull Munich, where he instantly became team captain – a position he also holds with the German national team. Munich played a strong regular season, finishing second only to Adler Mannheim despite being bugged by lots of injuries. Mannheim eventually went on to win the German championship, but Munich’s playoffs were very short, as they shockingly got swept by Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg in the first round.
So the 34-year-old Wolf, as many other players who started the exhibtion phase with the national team, had to wait three weeks until he could lace up his skates again and put on Germany’s sweater as he has done so often in the past. If he stays healthy he will play his 150th game for Team Germany during the upcoming World Championship in Prague.
The weekend before the World Championship, Germany played a pair of games in Denmark, losing the first 1–0 before winning the second 4–2. He spoke after the second one about his season and the upcoming international event.
Michael, what did the team learn from this weekend’s games?
We could see that if we don’t bring our game 100 percent it’s hard to compete against Denmark. In the first game they discouraged us and we cannot be happy about that. If you want to look at it positively we can say that we had a chance of winning the game right to the end. The second game was better right from the start and even when trailing 2–0 we were in the driver’s seat and played better, and so the win was well deserved in the end.
After one of the first exhibition games against Russia you said the team wanted to continuously get better. Did you achieve that goal?
Partially, I would say. I don’t think we took a step forward in the first Denmark game from the one versus France before. We may have thought that it would be easy. But maybe it was a good lesson for us at the right time. We know now that it wasn’t that easy and we made a step forward on Saturday, which was a good response to the game the night before.
There will be ten new players coming to the team from the DEL finalists for the last exhibtion game on Wednesday against Slovenia. How difficult will it be to integrate them in such short time?
I think everybody knew that there were some players coming to the team so it is kind of a normal thing for us. It’s our job now to get together as a team as fast as possible. Most of these guys have been with the national team before, we know each other well and it shouldn’t be too big of a problem for us to be a good team.
NOTE: Germany beat Slovenia 4–3 in a shootout, with Wolf scoring the first German goal.
What do you think is possible for this team to accomplish at the World Championship?
That’s tough to say. We have to be at 100 percent in every game to have a good tournament. I think we can get under the skin of some teams and we should be able to beat some teams. But other than that it’s too early to predict anything.
Let’s go back to your season with Munich, where you went after nine years with Iserlohn. How was that?
It was quite different, it’s a great experience to be in another city. Overall it was a very good regular season for us but the total opposite in the playoffs. It surely wasn’t our plan to get eliminated by Wolfsburg so fast. But there’s nothing I can do about it now and I will be concentrating on the national team right now.
Nevertheless Munich qualified for next season’s Champions Hockey League. What are your expectations about the CHL?
I’ve never played in an international club competition so it’s a whole new thing for me and I’m excited about that. I’ll see what it is like and I am sure it will be good. I’m really looking forward to competing with clubs from other countries.
Did you follow the first CHL season?
Not that much to be honest. I read about it here and there and I know that the teams from Germany didn’t finish all that well in the end. We will be looking to change that.