Gladiators win in minimalist mode at launch

Incredibly exciting belief on the Sunday evening of the start of the Bayernliga season. The Erding Gladiators and ESV Buchloe fought each other for 60 minutes in the Stadtwerke Erding Arena in a very intense but always fair party. In the end, the Gladiators prevailed 1-0 (0-0, 1-0, 0-0).

Erding – As hoped, Erding’s coach Thomas Daffner had all players available except for Elias Maier, who had been injured for a long time, and so 21 men were on the match sheet – equipped with the new, orange Halloween jerseys. The Pirates from Buchloe had three fewer. The Czech newcomer Michal Telesz was there.

And the guests showed from the first minute that they didn’t concentrate on defending, but wanted to play along. This turned into a lively party that went back and forth. Towards the middle of the first third, the Gladiators got the party under control a little better, but there were no good chances to score because a Buchloer thug kept getting in the way. Even when Erdinger had the majority and the 41-year-old Czech playmaker Michal Petrak was sitting in the penalty box, it didn’t work.

Shortly before the end of the period, the Pirates had one more man on the ice, and at 20:00 the puck was in the Erdinger goal, but the goal did not count. And not because time has run out, but because the goal was scored by hand.

The Gladiators also had their problems in the second third with the compact and robust Pirates. Even when they had the majority, when Daffner’s team really put a lot of pressure on, the defense around the extremely strong goalkeeper Dominic Guran was perfect. But in the 37th minute he was defeated. After making two saves, Kyle Brothers pushed the puck over the line from close range to make it 1-0. With Erdinger’s narrow lead, we went into the changing rooms for the second time.

At the beginning of the final period, the Gladiators really put the pressure on, and ESV goalkeeper Guran had to make brilliant saves every 30 seconds. The Pirates support their keeper with unrestrained but always fair commitment. They slowly freed themselves from the guests, but they couldn’t really relieve the burden.

We thought the Pirates would collapse at some point, but we were disappointed; the ESV kept up until the end. With 103 seconds left, Buchloe’s coach Christoph Lerchner called a timeout and briefly brought his goalkeeper off the ice for a sixth skater. However, nothing changes in the score.