In the search for a new national ice hockey coach, everything boils down to long-time national team captain Harold Kreis.
According to dpa information, the 63-year-old current coach of the Schwenninger Wild Wings is to succeed Toni Söderholm, who switched to SC Bern after the Germany Cup in November. Kreis’ change to the German Ice Hockey Federation is therefore only a formality, an announcement of the personnel should take place in January.
Signature pending
The “Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung”, the “Bild” and the “Eishockey News” first reported that the decision had been made for each district. However, a contract has not yet been signed. Therefore, neither the DEB nor the Wild Wings wanted to officially confirm an agreement on Monday. “I am confident that we can announce the new national coach in a timely manner,” said DEB sports director Christian Künast of the German Press Agency.
The preparation for the World Cup in Finland and Latvia in May starts at the beginning of April after the end of the playoff quarterfinals in the DEL. A measure by the DEB U25 team is already scheduled for February, which ideally should be managed by the new national coach. The German-Canadian circle, who played 187 times for Germany as a national defender, was supposed to succeed Marco Sturm as the coach of the Düsseldorf EG in 2018. However, this failed at the time due to the veto of DEG.
In the DEL Kreis also worked as a coach for his former club Adler Mannheim, with which he had become German champion as a player in 1980 and 1997. He was also employed as a trainer in Switzerland, where he became champion with Zurich and Lugano. Kreis has an excellent reputation in the league and in the association and has already worked several times as assistant coach of the national team, including in 2010 as assistant to Uwe Krupp when Germany reached the semi-finals of the World Cup.
