At the Champions League outfit of the Adler Mannheim at Brynäs IF, the eagles had to face unattractive scenes on Tuesday evening in the final phase. After the heavy accusations of the Swedish runner-up, the Mannheim reaction followed.
“We are not satisfied with what has happened in the last two minutes,”said manager Teal Fowler in a press release. Also Thomas Larkin, who allowed himself a violent body check against Daniel Paille shortly before the end of the game and then got into a fight with Lukas Kilsträm, showed himself to be reasonable:”It was not my intention to hurt a player. I originally wanted to put pressure on the disc player behind the goal.”
The overly hard gait had caused a lot of resentment on the Swedish side before.”Those bloody idiots. Send that shit home! They are so fucking cowardly,”Jacob Blomqvist had raged on TV immediately after the end of the match,”This has nothing to do with hockey, nothing at all,”Leif Strömberg added in the Swedish rush.
Despite all the apologies, Adler Mannheim have to accept the penalties imposed by the Champions League Sports Committee. Nikolai Goc and coach Sean Simpson, who had been negatively affected by unsportsmanlike behaviour, were each blocked for one game, and Larkin even had to watch four matches.