BOLZANO. Honoring the blue jersey, fully respecting the values of sport, giving young and very young children the opportunity to compete with the best of world ice hockey. Here are the objectives of the Italian national hockey team which will leave tomorrow, May 16, from Verona to Riga, where the Top Division World Cup.
It will be a Blue Team decimated by absences on the track and also on the bench, the one who will board the flight to Latvia. A team hit hard by injuries and, above all, by Covid-19.
Despite constant checks and strict compliance with safety protocols, in fact, the virus mockingly wedged itself into the blue group, infecting (fortunately without serious symptoms) many of the team’s key players and also the coach. In total, the cases of positivity were 15, two of which returned thanks to the passing of the disease certified by a negative PCR test.
Compared to the original calls, the following players were cut for technical choice: Simone Dadiè, Leonardo Felicetti, Enrico Larcher and Gianluca March. The list of players currently positive at Covid-19 is quite long, and is divided between those who certainly will not be able to participate in the World Cup, and those who could instead join the team once they are negative.
Among the first there are goalkeeper Andreas Bernard and forwards Tommaso Traversa, Michele Marchetti and Matthias Mantinger, which were not included in the list of 28 sent to the IIHF.
On the other hand, other players currently positive at Covid-19 could join the roster during the tournament: the goalkeeper Jake Smith, defenders Thomas Larkin, Enrico Miglioranzi and Alex Trivellato and striker Markus Gander. In the same situation are head coach Greg Ireland and one of his assistants, Riku-Petteri Lehtonen.
Ireland will continue to play, as far as possible, its role as remote head coach, for the start of the world adventure the team will be led on the bench by Giorgio De Bettin, Fabio Armani and the goalkeeping coach, the Swede Peter Andersson.
All those who have left for Latvia have been vaccinated in recent days against Covid-19, and the national ice hockey team is therefore among the very first sports representatives in our country to receive a dose of the vaccine.
Several players had to miss the World Cup due to injury, including Diego Kostner, Giovanni Morini, Marco Insam, Joachim Ramoser, Domenic Alberga, Ivan Tauferer and Luca Zanatta.
“We are undoubtedly in a complicated situation – comments the president of the FISG, Andrea Gios – and many might think it would have been easier to raise the white flag.
However, we want to fully honor what we earned on the pitch in 2019 in Bratislava: we owe it to our sport, we owe it to the blue jersey, we owe it to the IIHF that organized these World Championships despite the pandemic. The absences force us to anticipate by a few years the inclusion of a series of young people on whom we are aiming for the 2026 Olympics: for them this is a great opportunity, and we expect everyone to give their best not to disfigure against objectively more equipped teams. .
The Federation has confidence in the boys, the coaches and the staff: I hope that, even from a distance, the Italian fans will show their affection for this group ”.