Victory of will with downer

Wow, that was a statement. The Steinbach Black Wings showed the dominator of the regular season, HC Bozen, with emphasis and intensity that they are anything but casual customers on his way to the ice hockey title. The people of Linz were rewarded for a heroic fight in front of 3461 enthusiastic eyewitnesses with a 2:1 (1:0, 0:0, 1:1) victory, which equalized the 1:1 in this exciting and fast-paced best-of- 7 quarterfinal series fixed.

It goes on, on and on – and already on Sunday (6 p.m., live ticker on nachrichten.at) in the South Tyrolean Palaonda. Arrival is already today.

“Of course there is the belief that we can also win away from home,” said Black Wings striker Stefan Gaffal, even if HCB is a force in its “fortress”. The Italian serial champions have only lost three of their 25 home games this season – two against Villacher SV (1:3, 2:5) and one against the Vienna Capitals (3:5).

The Upper Austrians have not been able to take anything countable from Bolzano since December 1, 2019 or eight games. Incidentally, Dan DaSilva (18th), Andreas Kristler (26th), Brian Lebler (41st) and Rick Schofield (56th) scored a 4:3 win back then. It goes without saying that the Black Wings would take such a result with a kiss tomorrow.

A stone fell from Romig’s heart

But the journey there is long, but the chest has been wide since Friday at the latest. Especially in the Man of the Match, who was unlucky in the 2-0 defeat on Tuesday. We’re talking about Emilio Romig, whose puck stayed on the line. This time his conclusion was so sharp that there was no need for any discussion.

“I’m extremely happy that it worked out,” said the 30-year-old, who scored to make it 2-1 after a perfect through pass from Marc-Andre Dorion in 52:24 minutes. The guests, who only 132 seconds earlier in the power play (Julian Pusnik sat outside) through Cole Hults to make it 1-1 (51st), found no answer.

After the trembling siren, the Linz-AG-Eisarena stood upside down, the masses loudly chanted “This is what winners look like” and “Here the EHC reigns”. It was an incredible willpower of a collective, of which Rasmus Tirronen perhaps stood out. The stoically calm Finnish goalkeeper kept his perspective in a number of critical situations and defused 27 of the 28 shots.

Still, not everything was bliss. Michael Haga (31), who celebrated his birthday yesterday, as did Brodi Stuart (23), retired in the 44th minute with a suspected shoulder injury. A bitter loss, especially since the Norwegian has a proud 51 scorer points.