{"id":636193,"date":"2026-08-03T11:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/636193\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T11:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:18:16","slug":"sprechen-sie-hockey-this-german-family-has-a-room-waiting-for-you-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/636193\/","title":{"rendered":"Sprechen Sie hockey? This German family has a room waiting for you"},"content":{"rendered":"

A “hockey-obsessed” German family is offering Ottawa Senators fans travelling to D\u00fcsseldorf for this December’s NHL Global Series a free place to stay.<\/p>\n

The only catch? Guests must be ready for some deep conversations about the game they love.<\/p>\n

“All that we want is to have some nice talks about hockey,” Ingo Schmitt told CBC’s Ottawa Morning on Thursday. “We said, why not have people here in our house for those days, show them around, show them what’s here \u2026 that’s something we want to do as a family.”<\/p>\n

Schmitt, his wife Jutta and their son Ben are offering a comfortable room for up to two in their modern home in Neukirchen-Vluyn, a town about 35 minutes from the D\u00fcsseldorf arena where the Senators will face off against the Chicago Blackhawks on Dec. 18 and 20.<\/p>\n

They recently extended the offer to Ottawa fans on Reddit, and have even built a website<\/a> to help explain their motivation.<\/p>\n

“This isn’t a business. There’s no fee and no commercial listing \u2014 we just think hockey people should meet more hockey people,” says the site.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

(Submitted by Ingo Schmitt)<\/p>\n

Schmitt said he learned to skate on frozen lakes when he was a boy, but it wasn’t until an aunt took him to a local game that he fell in love with the sport. The family is now an active part of Germany’s relatively small but passionate hockey community.<\/p>\n

Schmitt says while it’s difficult due to the time difference to watch many NHL games on TV, they are avid supporters of their local team. And while Senators star Tim St\u00fctzle hails from a nearby town and has said he’s looking forward to his homecoming in December, Schmitt insists his family doesn’t play favourites.<\/p>\n

“It’s not about Tim St\u00fctzle. We really don’t have a favourite here,” he told Ottawa Morning.<\/p>\n

Guests may come and go as they please, but are welcome to join the family to prepare meals and hear about other local attractions such as the popular Christmas markets and D\u00fcsseldorf’s Altstadt, which claims to host the longest bar in the world.<\/p>\n

LISTEN | The Schmitts’ full Ottawa Morning interview:<\/p>\n

While the Senators have played several games in Sweden, this will be the team’s first foray to Germany, where the NHL is hoping to continue growing the sport.<\/p>\n

Schmitt says they’ve received lots of positive feedback about the offer, but so far have had no takers. He’s confident the right hockey fans will come along.<\/p>\n

“For us it’s important to meet people from abroad, to get to know them, to talk about hockey,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A “hockey-obsessed” German family is offering Ottawa Senators fans travelling to D\u00fcsseldorf for this December’s NHL Global Series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[59051,69516,5,3718,69515,4,72,69517,25,5157,73],"class_list":["post-636193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa-senators","tag-dusseldorf","tag-german-family","tag-hockey","tag-hockey-fans","tag-ingo-schmitt","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa","tag-ottawa-morning","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-ottawasenators","tag-senators"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117031305484476800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}