Ice hockey: defending champion Munich climbs to the top of the standings

Defending champion Red Bull Munich has taken the lead of the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) for the time being.After the double strike last weekend, coach Don Jackson’s team won 3-2 (3-0,0-1,0-1,0-1) against their neighbours Cologne’s sharks for the third consecutive threesome.

Munich climbs to first place with 15 points and a lead over the Nuremberg Ice Tigers (13 points).

Steven Pinizzotto scored the hosts’ early lead after only 26 seconds of play.The attacker and Jonathan Matsumoto took a double strike and soon afterwards extended the lead to 3-0 (9/10).Benjamin Hanowski shortened the score to 3:2 (31. /51.) with two goals for the sharks.

In the second game of the evening, two days after their triumph over the former front runner Nuremberg, Adler Mannheim proved their willingness to win again and, with a 4:1 (1:0,0:1,3:0) against the Krefeld Penguins, took third place in the standings for the time being.Chad Kolarik played for the hosts at first (13th) but Dragan Umicevic closed 1-1 (25th).The 50th goal from Kolarik (50th) and the goals of Luke Adam (54th) and Daniel Sparre (57th) led to the Mannheim team’s 4-1 win.

With the early matchday all four teams have one game more than the other competitors in the DEL.