Germany Continues To Eye Return To Olympic Women's Hockey

Germany has not qualified for the Winter Olympics in women's hockey since 2014. The past two Olympic Games, they lost out in European qualifiers to Czechia, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland.

This year, they'll have the chance to qualify from a pool that includes Hungary, Austria, and another yet to be determined nation from February 6-9 on home ice at Bremerhaven, Germany.

They're set to play a two game series on December 12 and 13 in Füssen against Norway as both nations prepare for their Olympic qualifier events.

"We are looking forward to the event in Füssen, where we can continue to prepare for the Olympic qualification tournament with a full team," said Germany's head coach Jeff MacLeod in a federation statement. "The week gives us the opportunity to bring all the players together, to work on the team structure and tactics again and to analyze the chemistry in the defensive and offensive lines. It is also a good opportunity for us as a coaching team with the rest of the staff to clarify any outstanding questions and to continue to develop a good feeling as a team for the important tournament in Bremerhaven."

The "full team" MacLeod refers to will include all of Germany's top players competing abroad, including in the PWHL, NCAA, and Sweden, along with their top domestic players in the DFEL.

Among those players will be Montreal Victoire netminder Sandra Abstreiter, NCAA players Nina Christof, Nina Jobst-Smith, Lilli Welcke, Luisa Welcke and Svenja Voigt, and Emily Nix who is playing in the SDHL. Laura Kluge who showed extremely well in the PWHL preseason is also on the roster as is Franziska Feldmeier who among league leaders in Germany's DFEL.

"We want to get a good overview of the players and line-ups and to make a final assessment before the tournament," said MacLeod of their goal heading into the series against Norway. "We want to see the players in different phases of the game - and how they harmonize with each other. Of course, the focus is also on the special teams. And in the two games against Norway, we want to see again what the team structure looks like, whether we still need to change things or whether things that have already been changed are working."

Germany narrowly missed advancing to Group A at the World Championships this year outplaying and outshooting Switzerland before falling in overtime.