The German U20 national team will prepare for the event as of next Wednesday in Kingston, Ontario. Four skaters will be cut to determine the final roster.

“It will be an awesome experience for my boys to play in Canada. Hockey is very popular there similar to football in our country. Our goal is to play like a top-10 team and to show that we deserve to play in this division,” said Pat Cortina, who coaches both the men’s and U20 national teams of Germany.

The Germans travel to Canada with a deeper roster and fewer underage players than usual. 11 players return from last year’s team that won the relegation battle against Norway.

The biggest name missing on the list is Leon Draisaitl, who played in the World Juniors the last two years. After being drafted third overall last summer, the 19-year-old Cologne native made the NHL roster of the Edmonton Oilers where he has played in all 29 games (2 goals, 5 assists).

The roster consists of players with different club backgrounds. Some of them already play professionally in Germany’s top league DEL including Fabio Wagner, who appeared in 22 games for ERC Ingolstadt, and a trio that has three scoring points in the current DEL season with forward Dominik Kahun, Marc Schmidpeter and defenceman Jonas Muller.

One player plays junior hockey in Canada – the Medicine Hat Tigers’ Markus Eisenschmid – six in the United States and one player, Frederik Tiffels with the Western Michigan University, played college hockey in the NCAA.