Luxembourg's national ice hockey team (2018);
After winning the 3rd Division last year, Luxembourg's national ice hockey team was promoted to IIB division; the IIHF World Championships Division IIB tournament starts next weekend in Granada, Spain, running from 14 - 20 April 2018.
Last time Luxembourg played on this level (Division II) was in 2004; from that team there are still four players remaining (Phil Lepage, Ronny Scheier, François Schons, Benny Welter) who will participate in this year’s tournament.
There are only some small changes compared to last year’s victorious Luxembourg roster. Robo Beran, Eric Wampach, Ben Houdremont and Steven Minden are not available this year, but Sebastian Grein, Kevin Grönlund, Claude Mossong, Mikael Äijälä, Raoul Kramer, Philippe Bechtold and Pit Sinner are the potential new faces this year.
The other teams in the competition this year are tournament host Spain, as well as New Zealand, Israel, Mexico and North Korea. According to the forecasts, it looks like Spain and New Zealand could be the favourites in the group. Spain was relegated last year from division IIA so they are used to playing on a high level.
New Zealand finished 2nd last year but it seems they are putting a lot of effort into the tournament this year as they went for a training camp to Latvia already two weeks before the tournament. They also have a few new players, for example Matthew Schneider who has even been drafted to the NHL.
The black horse of the group could be Luxembourg’s first opponent, Israel, who finished 3rd last year. The biggest factor is if their star player Eliezer Sherbatov will come or not. Sherbatov played last season in KHL team Slovan Bratislava. KHL is the Russian league and the second-best league in the world after NHL.
In the tournament, the teams will play one game against each other team. The team which gets most points will win while the team with the least points will relegated. So, it looks like Mexico and North Korea will be the main opponents for Team Luxembourg. To avoid the relegation could be a first aim for Team Luxembourg and one win may be enough. The Luxembourg Lions will play their last two games against those teams.
Since the roster of Team Luxembourg looks at least as strong as it was last year, this could be a perfect chance now to take a further step in Luxembourg hockey to stabilise a position on the higher level. Team Luxembourg is a good mixture of experienced players of the likes of Benny Welter and Ronny Scheier, and the future generation of young players including Mirko Mosr and Sebastian Grein. Also, many key players such as Colm Cannon and Phil Lepage are in the best age as hockey players.
