The crashing false start was followed by an arduous mandatory victory: The German national ice hockey team has not yet found its form at the Olympic Games in Beijing, but at least scored the first points.
Almost 44 hours after the sobering 1: 5 against Canada, the team of national coach Toni Söderholm struggled against hosts China to a 3: 2 (2: 0, 1: 1, 0: 1) - after a 3: 0 lead.
Defenders Marcel Brandt (14th) and Korbinian Holzer (17th) and former NHL forward Dominik Kahun (25th) scored the goals in the National Hallenstadion for the selection of the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB), which has ten silver medalists from 2018 started.
Canadian-born Parker Foo (40') and Tyler Wong (49') scored for the blatant outsider, who lost his Olympic debut against the USA 8-0.
At the end of the preliminary round, the German team will meet the Americans on Sunday (2:10 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Olympics, as well as on ARD and Eurosport), who are leading Group A after beating Canada 4-2.
Two days after the opening defeat, the ailing defender Marco Nowak, who had been hit in the head during a hard check, was absent.
Dominik Bittner from Wolfsburg replaced the Düsseldorfer as the seventh defender in the team.
In goal was once again Mathias Niederberger from Berlin, who had shown unusual weaknesses in the first game.
The DEB team started extremely nervous and with many inaccuracies in the passing game.
So Niederberger had a lot more to do in the first few minutes than his opponent, the American Jeremy Smith.
Nevertheless, the puck initially struggled in the Chinese net, but Daniel Pietta's goal was withdrawn after video evidence because the goalkeeper was obstructed (10').
Only then did the favorite take over more and more of the initiative.
But it was only an individual performance that brought the lead: Brandt grabbed the disc in his own third, moved to the goal and scored in the margin.
The 2-0 was also down to a defender: Holzer's flick fluttered into the net.
In the second third, the puck initially ran better through the German ranks.
Kahun deflected a shot from captain Moritz Müller for the third goal.
The approximately 800 hand-picked fans, who waved their flags undeterred, were then able to celebrate their team's first Olympic goals.
At 32nd in the world rankings, there were only six players on the ice who were born in China.
A total of 14 North Americans and one Russian had been naturalized for the Olympics.
In some cases, the World Federation IIHF generously ignored its own rules for a change of nation.
The national team is identical to Kunlun Red Star, the Chinese club in the Russian KHL.