Thomas Dressen ended Germany’s 13-year wait for a men’s World Cup downhill victory on Saturday
Ian Thomas Jersey , upsetting the pre-race favorites in the classic Hahnenkamm race.
Starting 19th and taking advantage of improved visibility during a brief spell of sunshine on a cloudy day, Dressen sped down the 3.3-kilometer Streif course in 1 minute, 56.15 seconds to beat then-leader Beat Feuz of Switzerland by 0.20 seconds.
”I couldn’t believe it when I finished and saw the `1.’ I thought they were making a joke,” the 24-year-old Dressen said. ”I had to look at the timing board twice to believe it. It’s really been a dream to win Kitzbuehel one time. It’s incredible.”
Celebrating in the finish area and watched by more than 40,000 spectators, Dressen screamed for joy, holding both skis above his head before kneeling down for a moment.
”I was trying to soak up the atmosphere,” said the first German winner of the Hahnenkamm downhill since Sepp Ferstl won it twice – in 1978 and 1979.
Attending Saturday’s race, Ferstl was among the first to congratulate his successor.
”That Ferstl-Streif myth has finally ended,” the 63-year-old Ferstl said. ”I am happy that I can say now, `Thomas has won it as well.”’
Hannes Reichelt of Austria, who won the race four years ago, was 0.41 behind in third, and Aksel Lund Svindal trailed by 1.12 in eighth. The Norwegian, who won Friday’s super-G on the same hill, remained in the lead of the downhill standings, 10 points clear of Feuz.
The German men’s team had not won a downhill since Max Rauffer triumphed in Val Gardena, Italy, in December 2004.
Another victory, however
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On Saturday, Sander placed sixth while Ferstl was 20th.
”We have a super team, also with the coaches, the ski technicians, the physiotherapists,” Dressen said. ”We try to learn from each other and that’s what brings us forward.”
A downhill silver medalist at the 2014 junior world championships, Dressen got his fifth top-10 result this season, including his first career podium by placing third in Beaver Creek, Colorado, in December.
”For me it is a surprise that it went so well,” Dressen said following his win on one of the most difficult men’s World Cup courses. ”I struggled in the training, especially in the steep section. Today I skied that well for the first time.”
Getting his first victory in Austria was special to Dressen, who moved to the neighboring country as a kid to study and learn racing at the ski school in Neustift in the Tyrol province. Also, he lost his father, Dirk Dressen
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”I was in Neustift for a year and then in Saalfelden for five more years. That has definitely been the right way for me,” said Dressen, who was born in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The Bavarian resort will host men’s World Cup races next weekend.
Feuz, the downhill world champion, was starting to believe he had won the race after his leading time was still holding up after 18 starters, with nearly all favorites having completed their runs.
Several racers, most notably Olympic champion Matthias Mayer and fellow Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr, led the Swiss skier halfway through their runs but lost their advantage on the challenging finish section.
”I am very glad with second place. In Kitzbuehel you are always glad when you get to the finish,” Feuz said. ”Last year I crashed here so it wasn’t easy to get that out of my head.”
The 78th edition of the Hahnenkamm races end with a slalom on Sunday.
As checkered playoff histories go, the Washington Capitals haven’t been around nearly as long as some NHL teams. The track record was still long and sad.
There was Pat Lafontaine of the Islanders beating them in the four-overtime ”Easter Epic” back in 1987. Esa Tikkanen missing a wide-open net in the Stanley Cup Final loss to Detroit in 1998.
Heck, losing nine of 11 postseason meetings against the Pittsburgh Penguins alone is filled to the brim with gut-wrenching letdowns.
The puck finally bounced the right way for the Capitals, who built a 3-1 lead in the Final against Vegas after some rare postseason fortune and wrapped it up Thursday night in Game 5. Lars Eller’s double-overtime winner off his right skate kept his team out of a 3-0 hole in the first round. Then came a cathartic, six-game elimination of the Penguins behind a patchwork lineup full of rookies.
Against the Golden Knights, Braden Holtby made the stick save of a lifetime to lock up a Game 2 win and opponent James Neal clanked a shot off the post in Game 4, staring at as much net as Tikkanen had 20 years ago.
It’s as though all the bad breaks from the previous 42 seasons of Washington Capitals hockey are being erased – or at least somewhat forgotten – in a run that could deliver the franchise’s first title.
”It’s like the franchise was star-struck,” said David Poile, who was Washington’s general manager from 1982-1995.
”They’ve had all these really good teams, all of these opportunities that appeared that this could be the year that they could win playoff rounds and compete for the Cup or win the Stanley Cup. … It just feels like – as Barry Trotz would say – the hockey gods have evened things out.”
Before this spring, the Capitals had made it past the second round of the playoffs just twice and reached the final once, when Tikkanen and Co. were swept by the Red Wings. Abe and Irene Pollin
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”My husband and I had developed a habit of when we lost, we would go to eat frozen custard to help us deal with the loss,” Irene Pollin recalled.
There were a lot of chances for custard: Teams leading 3-1 in a best-of-seven series have won 91 percent of the time (276-28). Of those 28, the Capitals have blown such a lead five times – the most of any team. There was no such falloff this time.
Winning just one game against the expansion Golden Knights already made this the most successful season in the history of a franchise that began in 1974-75. It was, by the way, the worst first-year team in NHL history (8-67-5) that developed into a team known for postseason failures – which only worsened in the Alex Ovechkin era.
For many of the players who have been through it all, the strong showing against Vegas was long overdue.
”I’m part of history. I’m part of not winning a Cup here for a long time,” said longtime scoring winger Peter Bondra, who played for the Capitals from 1990-2004.
”I don’t even play, but I feel like a part of this team, believe it or not. It’s just something in it. Obviously, I play here for 14 years, I grew up here with the team as a player, my family grew up here.”
After missing the playoffs in their first eight seasons, there was a ”Save the Caps” campaign in 1982 just to keep them around and in Washington.
”We couldn’t sell tickets,” said Irene Pollin, now 93. ”We went to Montreal to fight for the franchise, So for three days and three nights we were up and I was in a nightgown typing letters to the president and everybody to have them send letters to the league because they kept saying, `Washington is a southern city
Bill Bates Jersey , it’ll never be a hockey town.”’
Abe Pollin that summer hired Poile as his general manager. When the 33-year-old executive asked for a three-year contract, Pollin agreed but only after telling Poile he’d better do well in the first season or the franchise might fold.
Less than two weeks later, Poile changed the course of the franchise by acquiring eventual Hall of Fame defenseman Rod Langway. Washington made the playoffs in all 13 seasons with Poile in charge but couldn’t break through.
”We had to play against some of the great teams ever in the NHL: We had to go against the Islanders who won four straight, the Rangers were always on the border, Pittsburgh when Mario (Lemieux) came in,” said Langway, who played 11 seasons for the Capitals. ”We challenged them, we competed with them, but we couldn’t get over the hump.”
That became the Capitals’ unwelcome hallmark. Plenty of times an improbable play ended a promising run, whether it was the Rangers’ Pierre Larouche beating Pete Peeters from a sharp angle in 1986 or Lafontaine’s shot through traffic for the Game 7 winner a year later early on Easter morning at the Capital Centre in nearby Landover, Maryland.
”To me, that is sort of what happened, the epitome of what has happened to this franchise,” said winger-turned-broadcaster Craig Laughlin, who came to Washington in the Langway trade and never left. ”We didn’t get those type of bounces. It seemed like every other team did but we didn’t.”
That continued to Tikkanen in 1998 and into the ”Rock the Red” era with Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. They lost in overtime of Game 7 in 2008 on a Flyers power play, in 2009 on home ice when the Penguins blew them out, in 2010 when Canadiens goaltender Jaroslav Halak stopped 41 of 42 shots in Game 7, in 201.
