The 4:3 victory of the nurnberg ice tigers against the german champion eisbaren berlin in front of a european record crowd was almost a minor matter at that moment. Despite constant drizzle and low temperatures, the spectators created a goosebump atmosphere. "That was a rough event for german ice hockey," said ice barbarians coach don jackson, "because of the defeat we are naturally frustrated."Nurnbergs kapitan patrick reimer was happy about the "pleasure" of playing in front of so many fans. "It was an incredible and indescribable feeling when i looked into the crowded range," said the 30-year-old.
Connor james gave the nurnberg team a 1-0 lead only in the second period and went down in history as the first goal scorer in the DEL wintergame. Berlin defender florian busch equalized two seconds before the end of the third with a brute shot. "I didn’t realize at first that the puck was in it," he told servus tv. Tim schule scored to give france the lead again, but berlin captain andre rankel made it 2-2 just 27 seconds later.
The joy lasted only four minutes, then reimer scored the 3:2 for the ice tigers. Jason jaspers raised the score to 4:2 – that was the deciding factor, even though T.J mulock still managed to score the 3:4.
The players could have used a windshield wiper in front of their face shield against the rain. To protect themselves from the reflection of the unfamiliar floodlight, many professionals had painted black shoe polish under their eyes.
The 15,000 square meters of coarse weave carpet, which lay in the interior, provided for a winter atmosphere. In just ten days, the austrian technician gottfried strauss had turned parts of the lawn into a patch of ice. But the conditions were not perfect. "Because the puck bounces a bit across the ice, we had to play it harder and more accurately than usual," said berlin’s constantin braun. This was one of the reasons why the match was on a low level for a long time.
The first tentative la ola already swept through the stadium after the performance of the cowboy rockers the boss hoss, who appeared as the opening act of the winter spectacle. When the icebaren players entered the stadium for their warm-up, the chorus of "dynamo, dynamo" rang out from the corner of the 5,000 berliners who had come with them. The nurnberg crowd chanted "ice tigers, ice tigers" and waved blue and red flags to bury their players. The nurnberger won the game, the fans’ contest ended in a draw.