It is a good custom at ice hockey world championships: If a team experiences its last game, the three best players in the tournament are honored, and there are gifts from sponsors, usually an expensive watch from Switzerland.
However, the souvenir photo rarely shows happy people.
For most teams, the last tournament game is a defeat.
And so on Sunday goalkeeper Franziska Albl, defender Tanja Eisenschmid and striker Julia Zorn looked rather disgruntled into the camera when they picked up their presents after the 2: 3 in the placement game against Russia.
In the end, the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) came in eighth at the World Cup in Canada.
Secretly, they had hoped for a little more at the DEB.
Although the official goal of the quarter-finals was achieved, coach Thomas Schädler spoke of "really good games at a high level" afterwards, but it was not enough for a place in the top five.
And that would have been decisive for the next tournaments.
The world association IIHF has the top 5 in the world rankings always play in a group, they are automatically qualified for the knockout phase.
The other five nations - including Germany - play the last three quarter-final tickets in group B.
The IIHF wants to prevent too one-sided games in the group phase.
It used to make sense because the differences in performance were too serious, but recently women's ice hockey has made a leap in numerous countries.
Not only did Finland shorten the gap to the “overteams” from Canada and the United States and even reached the final in 2019, more and more teams are meeting at eye level.
But the rigid tournament format hardly allows for exchange between the groups, as the best of the second group automatically meet the three top teams in the quarter-finals.
Unsurprisingly, they were all eliminated in Canada in the first knockout round.
That also applied to the Germans, who had no chance in the 7-0 draw against Canada.
Goal shot ratio: 3:52.
But until then, the tournament was definitely impressive: two wins against Hungary (3: 0) and Denmark (3: 1), two defeats against the Czech Republic (0: 2) and Japan (1: 2), there was the expected elimination to get over.
In September the clubs continue, in November the most important tournament of the year is due: the Olympic qualification in Füssen. The games against greats like Canada or Russia were exactly the right preparation: "We learn from these mistakes," promised national coach Schädler.