Golden cup instead of “salad bowl”: Linz U20 celebrated the championship title

Three weeks after losing the playoff of the international U20 championship, the ice hockey juniors in Linz had another reason to be happy: As part of a championship celebration on Monday evening, the U20 team was presented with the trophy for the national championship title.

The fact that it became a golden trophy is also thanks to the Upper Austrian regional association. The originally planned trophy, a silver “salad bowl,” did not sufficiently represent the significance of the state championship title. That’s why the OÖEHV intervened with the federal association to replace the cup with a golden version. The ÖEHV agreed.

You can see more of the fun evening in the VIP rooms of the Linz AG Eisarena in the following picture gallery:

Picture gallery: Linz ice hockey juniors celebrated championship titles

(Photo: MARKUS PRINZ) Bild 1/67

View gallery

In front of Black Wings captain Brian Lebler, coach Philipp Lukas and president Peter Nader as well as many other officials and patrons of Linz ice hockey, medals were handed out to the winners before state association president Christian Ladberg presented the trophy.

In his speech, Ladberg emphasized how proud he was of the young ice hockey players. “We launched our project, the Upper Austria Ice Hockey Academy, in 2020. At a time when we all had to learn to live with restrictions. You might think that it wasn’t the most ideal time. But looking back, that’s what makes us happy now a bit prouder. Successes like this are what we started this project for,” said the country’s head. There was praise for the cooperation with the Black Wings organization and all other clubs in the country that send their young people to the academy and are therefore part of the success.

Hear more from the Linz U20 season in this episode of the Eisbrecher podcast:

The Linz U20

and her path to the gold medal

The ice hockey academy’s U20 team started the playoffs as gross underdogs, but then made it to the final and ultimately became state champions.

U20 head coach John Bierchen, who spoke in a short speech about a “very special group of players”, initially avoided a beer shower. The American with Luxembourgish roots – in complete dissonance with his last name – doesn’t drink beer. Because he couldn’t refuse his team’s request for a supposed selfie with the trophy a little later, his players ultimately caught him.