MUNICH – Germany extends the coaching staff by adding Harold Kreis as a new assistant coach.
 
Kreis, who played 180 games for the German national team, has been the head coach of the DEG Metro Stars Düsseldorf for the last two years and will become head coach of Adler Mannheim next year.
 
The German Ice Hockey Association also announced that their general secretary Franz Reindl will focus on his duties in the 2010 IIHF World Championship Organizing Committee while team manager Klaus Merk will take over Reindl’s operational sport director tasks until the end of the World Championship.
 
Merk will be replaced as goaltender coach and video coach by Rupert Meister of Kölner Haie.
 
“I’m sure that we are very well staffed in any position for the World Championship with Klaus Merk, Harold Kreis, Ernst Höfner and Rupert Meister,” said head coach Uwe Krupp. “The team will have the best conditions to attack with offensive-minded hockey at the World Championship with the support of our fans.”
 
Before the opening game against Team USA in Gelsenkirchen on May 7 and the preliminary round in Cologne, the German national team will play several exhibition games against Norway (April 16 in Crimmitschau, April 17 in Dresden), Switzerland (April 21 in Schwenningen), Belarus (April 24 in Minsk/BLR), Slovakia (April 25 in Minsk/BLR) and Canada (May 4 in Hamburg).