Last season, Austria earned a promotion to the elite group of this year's World Championship, and got off to a good start with a shootout win over Switzerland. Led by captain Thomas Raffl, EBEL champs Red Bull Salzburg form the core of the national team, who hope to duplicate to duplicate the club's success.

by Derek O'Brien

PRAGUE – This past season, the Austrian-based EBEL served notice that some of its teams could compete against some of the best teams in Europe, placing Red Bull Salzburg and the Vienna Capitals among the Champions Hockey League's Round-of-16. Those same two teams met in the league finals this year, with Salzburg regaining the title.

One of the leaders of Salzburg's championship run was captain Thomas Raffl. Raffl is now also captain of a rebuilding Austrian national team, which is also trying to assert itself among the world's best. In recent years, the Austrians have been up and down between the elite group and Division I almost annually, but by winning their first game, 4–3 in a shootout over neighbouring Switzerland, they served notice that they plan to stick around in the highest group.

Team Austria is coached by Salzburg bench boss Daniel Ratushny and, in addition to Raffl, there are six other Salzburg players on the national team. As well, Raffl's younger brother Michael, who currently plays for the Philadelphia Flyers, is also on the team. The brothers each contributed a goal and an assist against Switzerland, with the brothers working together to create the tying goal with 50 seconds left in regulation time.

Thomas, Austria is just up from Division I this year, so how big is it to open this World Championship with a win?

It's really great. Switzerland has been a pretty good team the last few years and they showed it right from the start today too. We were behind 1–0 right away and we battled back, so this gives us a lot of confidence coming back against a team like that.

Austria has had success against Switzerland over the years at the World Championship. What kind of rivalry is there between the two countries?

I guess there's a rivalry between all the teams in the World Championship. It's maybe not as big as Austria–Germany, but yeah, it can be intense out there against Switzerland. Of course we want to beat them, just as we want to beat every team.

Your team was behind after one period, but then you tied it early in the second. Can you describe it?

The goal was just kind of a broken play, there was a 1-on-1 battle behind the net and I just wanted to put it in front and the goalie wasn't ready, so it turned out pretty good.

And then, of course, you assisted on the tying goal near the end.

The second one was in the last minute of the game and we knew we had to score a goal. I just tried to put it on net and my brother made a really good tip in front.

Did you two practice that play together as kids?

(laughing) No, not really. I guess that's something that everybody practices. You want to go in front of the net and make it difficult for the goalie to see, and maybe get the puck to change direction.

You've got a lot of players on the team from Red Bull Salzburg, including the whole starting five. Does that make it easier to work as a team?

Yeah for sure, our whole line is from Salzburg and we've got the coach from Salzburg and we pretty much use the same system that we do in the league. So it's easy for those of us from there and we can help the other players who come from different clubs to adapt to the system.

Speaking of Salzburg, you had a pretty good season there.

Yeah we were good. We won the championship this year. We came pretty close last year and we were disappointed to finish up in second. This year we made it and obviously it's nice to win the league and then to come to the World Championship after.

Does it also help that almost all of the players come from the EBEL?

Most of our players are from that league. But as long as everybody gets playing the team system, it doesn't really matter what league they come from, whether from Europe or overseas.

It seems the league is getting better. A lot of people were surprised by the success of a couple of teams in the Champions Hockey League.

For sure, the league has been getting better. There's a lot of imports and that raises the quality, and every year it seems it takes another step. It showed that in the Champions League that we can beat teams from some of the top leagues in Europe.

Of course, there was also some disappointment for your team in the CHL (blowing a big lead in the eighth-final against Lulea Hockey).

That was one of the breakdowns I was talking about before and that happens sometimes in hockey. We weren't too happy about that but we just had to recover and make sure we do it better next time.

You're captain in Salzburg and now also captain of the national team. What does that mean to you?

It's obviously a great honour and I'm proud that the coach gave me that role. You know, we've got a whole bunch of leaders on the team so it doesn't really make a big difference that it's me wearing the “C”, but we just want to help the young guys get used to the team and get everybody playing as a team.

By winning your first game, you've taken a good step toward staying in the top group. Beyond that, what are your hopes for this team?

We want to play our best hockey every game. That was just one game, not really a whole lot. It was a good start and we want to play our best hockey tomorrow against Sweden.

One last question. You talked about the improvement of the league and national team in Austria. What do you think about the future of Austrian hockey?

I think the future is looking good. Salzburg has a program and the national team also has a program of developing young players and it's turning out good so far, and I think it'll get better.