Last season, Gernot Tripcke, managing director of the German Ice Hockey League (DEL), once said that he always looked around nervously every morning to see if everything was okay. The fear that the virus could upset the already reduced game plan was great. But then almost everything went well – only one game could not be played until the end of the main round of the DEL. This could be different this season, because the Iserlohn Roosters have now also been hit.
As a consequence of a positive corona test, one player is in quarantine and “all other players” are in isolation, the club announced on Sunday afternoon. The game scheduled for the early evening at the Augsburg Panthers was canceled and the 16th matchday in the German ice hockey league was thinned out a lot. Three out of seven games were canceled because RB Munich and Düsseldorfer EG could not play at the moment. In Munich there were 22 positive cases in and around the team, although, according to the club, almost all those affected are double-vaccinated.
The angry virus brought chaos to the DEL, a statement from the league was initially not available. Due to the many cancellations, it is becoming more and more problematic with the fixtures in a season that has to be interrupted in February because of the Olympic Games and at the end of which there is still a World Cup. The virus has not hit any other professional league in the country as hard as the DEL. The risk of infection seems to be great despite all the hygiene measures, the players spend a lot of time in closed, narrow spaces: Corona has an easy time in the changing rooms and on bus trips.
In Iserlohn, after an initial positive corona test, all players and supervisors are now in quarantine. “In particular, the fact that there were no complaints after the game on Thursday evening and that we then had several players with symptoms on Saturday set all the alarm bells ringing,” said the Roosters’ sporting director, Christian Hommel of the dpa. The Sauerlanders played in Wolfsburg on Thursday. There was also a positive test elsewhere: The Eisbären Berlin announced on Friday that Mark Zengerle was infected with the virus. Zengerle, who was last disregarded by his coach, was isolated from the team, it said.
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