Release from 19.06.2022

Foxes rely on Andreas Bernard again

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Andreas Bernard kept the goal of EC VSV for most of the last season and moved to HCB Südtirol Alperia for the last games of the season. In the coming season, the Foxes rely on the Italian goalie already from the beginning of the season.

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For the 32-year-old native of Caldaro and current regular goalkeeper of the Italian national team, it will be the fourth engagement in the jersey of HCB: 14 years ago, the then very young, promising Bernard guarded as a back-up of Pasi Hakkinen the HCB housing and won in the season everything there was to win: after winning the Italian Cup and the Supercup, the season was crowned in the Italian Serie A with the 18th Italian championship title. In the 2020/21 season, he then returned to Bolzano on short notice, as a replacement for the then injured Leland Irving, and knew how to convince with a catch rate of 93.8 percent in ten games, before finishing the season with Väsby IK in the Allsvenskan.

Between these two stations in Bolzano lay a long and successful career in Finland: from 2011 to 2015 he played his way up from the U20 through the 2nd "Mestis" league to the 1st Liiga, where he found a new longer-term home in Pori and stood between the posts for four seasons as the regular goalkeeper of Ässät Pori. With a consistent catch rate between 90.5 and 92.5% in one of the best leagues in Europe, he also secured the role of regular goalkeeper in the Italian national team. Last season Andreas started as a regular goalkeeper for the league rivals of EC VSV and finished it in Bolzano.

Andreas Bernard: "I am really looking forward to my first full season in Bolzano. It's nice to come into our team's dressing room, where I know practically everyone. It will be important to form a good group from the start: we have to make up for last year, and we know that a tight-knit group with great team spirit often has more success than a squad full of exceptional players. In Bolzano you always have pressure, but for me it's a positive factor and you have to use it to give your best at all times. I had the opportunity to talk to some players who have already worked with our new coach and they all speak very highly of him: he is a very experienced coach, with a long and significant career in top-level field hockey. I am sure that he can give us what we need to do very well".

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)