They face Switzerland today in a critical match for the struggling nation.

In fact, the entire program except the senior men’s team is now in Division I after a series of disappointing results this 2014/15 season.

“It’s not easy for us because we know things haven’t gone well for Germany,” admitted Patrick Reimer, “especially under-20, under-18, and women’s teams all went down. We’re in the here and now and will try our best. We had a good start and maybe now we can surprise some people.”

The U20 team had a disappointing tournament in Montreal, losing all four game in the preliminary round and then losing two games by the same 5-2 score to Switzerland in the relegation round.

The U18 team fared no better in Lucerne. It went winless in the first round (one overtime loss and three regulation time losses) and then lost two 5-3 decisions to Latvia in the relegation round.

The women, too, have not gone unscathed. At the World Women’s in Malmo just last month they lost all three games to start and then were upset by Japan in the relegation round, losing by scores of 3-2 and 2-1.

The women’s U18 team was already in Division I this year, and after a disappointing 2-3 round robin record will remain there another year.

“It’s definitely not good for our program,” admitted Michael Wolf. We also know it’s tough for us. We have a lot of guys who are not here, so nobody expects anything from us. We want to play a good tournament. We’re thinking of this World Championship as a best-of-seven series, so we want to win four games.”