It was every man for himself: Pustertal and Ljubljana played out a wildly chaotic match. © Domen Jancic

Pusterer Wild West semi-final: "Never experienced anything like this before"

HC Pustertal returns to the arena on Thursday: Starting at 7:45 p.m. (SportNews live ticker), the Wolves will face Olimpija Ljubljana in the third semifinal at the Intercable Arena. However, the talk of the town is still the chaotic match from Tuesday. Now, defender Daniel Glira has commented on it.

April 02, 2026

From: det

Hard checks, rink battles, skirmishes, scuffles: That emotions run high in ice hockey playoffs is a common occurrence in virtually every game and is part of what makes this sport so special. But that one game... so out of control as on Tuesday A match between Olimpija Ljubljana and HC Pustertal is quite rare.

143 penalty minutes for Ljubljana, 93 for Pustertal, 236 in total – it was a Wild West scene unfolding in the Hala Tivoli. Pustertal's 3-0 victory (and thus their second win in the second game of the series) almost became a footnote.

The final minutes were chaotic. © Domen Jancic

Especially in the final period, all hell broke loose: The frustrated Ljubljana players, who had already been pushing the boundaries of legality with their rough play throughout the entire game, started one mass brawl after another. In the last ten minutes alone, the referees handed out 185 penalty minutes, and at times there were more players in the penalty boxes than on the bench.

"There was this tension from the very beginning." Daniel Glira

“No, I’ve never experienced anything like that before,” said Daniel Glira the day after the match. “There were an enormous number of penalties. You know how wild things can get in the playoffs, especially when a team is behind and wants to make a statement. Ljubljana showed that.”

Pustertal's Austin Osmanski (in yellow) also dropped his gloves. © Domen Jancic

The Toblach defender added: "There was tension from the very beginning, it kept escalating, and then what happened, happened. There were also one or two questionable actions among them."

Petan banned

Despite this enormous flood of penalties, the sports court showed leniency: only against Olimpijas Alex Petan has been given a two-match ban. His dirty check against the prone Henry Bowlby was the low point of this Wild West evening.

"We need to keep a cool head." Daniel Glira

“We have to make sure we don’t let this throw us off. We also took a lot of penalties ourselves on Tuesday, and I think we can expect a similar match on Thursday at the Intercable Arena. We absolutely have to keep a cool head,” Glira declared, setting the course.

Pasquale unbeaten for 208 minutes

HC Pustertal now holds all the cards. The Wolves are in exhilarating form, having won all six playoff games and not conceding a single goal in their two semifinal matches against Ljubljana. Goalie Eddie Pasquale is unbeaten in 208 minutes across the entire series.

“We play incredibly solidly, concede very little, and if something does get through, our goalie Eddie is there to make the save. The series against Salzburg has given us a lot of confidence,” said Glira, who also emphasized: “We still have a long way to go.”

ICE Semifinals, Game 3 (Best-of-7)

HC Pustertal – Olimpija Ljubljana (19.45 p.m.)
Score in the series: 2:0

Graz99ers – Fehervar AV19 (6:30 pm)
Score in the series: 2:0