Germany hit Canada for six

Prabhjot Singh

Tribune News Service

Defending champions Germany scored at will to blank Canada 6-0 to notch up their first win of the 12th World Cup Hockey Tournament at Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium here today. Germany and South Korea had split points in their first pool A match on Monday. For Canada it was their second successive defeat in as many matches as they had gone down fighting to New Zealand 2- in their first game of the World Cup.

German dominance was so complete that in the second half, they rested most of their senior players and blooded their young crop to give them the much needed big match exposure. Germany not only got eight penalty corners, three of which produced goals, two by Jan-Marco Montag and the third by Martin Haner. It is a different story that in the second half, Montag had to go out after being shown a yellow card for intentionally obstructing Ranjeev Deol of Canada.

Florian Fuchs, a promising youngster, had the satisfaction of scoring a brace late in the second half. The second and sixth for Germany was a stunning goal as he took possession of the ball in the extreme left flank of the Canadian striking circle and pelted a bullet like angled shot into the board.

Earlier, he intercepted a goalmouth steamer from Martin Zwicker, another youngster, before finding the target with a shot that sailed into the net. Canadians did try to make a match of the game in the second half with some good moves but the German defence, including skipper M. Muller, were unbeatable.

Since the game was one-sided there was only video referral that went in favour of Germany after substitute umpire had blown for a free hit for Canada.

Germany, however, could not make use of the resultant penalty corner. With four points from two games, Germany is now back in the hunt for top position in the pool.