Kai Hospelt (born August 23, 1985) is a German professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

player who last played for the

Ravensburg Towerstars The Ravensburg Towerstars are a professional ice hockey team based in Ravensburg, Germany, and one of the oldest clubs in the country. They currently play in DEL2, the second level of ice hockey in Germany. Prior to the 2013–14 season they play ...

of the

DEL2 DEL2 (also known as Deutsche Eishockey Liga 2 or DEL II) is the second tier ice hockey league in Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Se ...

. He was an Olympian at the

2010 Olympic Winter Games The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXI Olympic Winter Games () and also known as Vancouver 2010 (), were an international winter multi-sport event held from February 12 to 28, 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with ...

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, Canada.

Playing career

Kai Hospelt's career started in 2002 in the

Deutsche Eishockey Liga The Deutsche Eishockey Liga (for sponsorship reasons called Penny (supermarket), PENNY Deutsche Eishockey Liga) (; English: ''German Ice Hockey League'') or DEL, is a professional ice hockey league in Germany and the highest division in German i ...

for his hometown

Kölner Haie The Kölner Haie (English: ''Cologne Sharks'') are an ice hockey club based in Cologne, Germany, that plays in the professional Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL). The team was one of the founding members of the DEL. The ''Kölner Haie'' play their ho ...

. After his first year in the DEL he was drafted by the

San Jose Sharks The San Jose Sharks are a professional ice hockey team based in San Jose, California. The Sharks compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Con ...

in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft. Hospelt never made it to the Sharks squad, but played for five more seasons in Cologne. After six total seasons with the Sharks, he moved onto the

Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg The Grizzlys Wolfsburg are a professional ice hockey club of the German professional ice hockey league Deutsche Eishockey Liga. They play their games at Eis Arena Wolfsburg. History Wolfsburg earned their first promotion to the DEL in 2004. Howe ...

where he spent five seasons and his last two as Captain of the Grizzly Adams until the conclusion of the

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

season. On April 12, 2013, at the conclusion of his contract with Wolfsburg, Hospelt signed a three-year contract with

Adler Mannheim The Adler Mannheim (English: ''Mannheim Eagles'', formerly Mannheimer ERC) is a professional ice hockey team of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, the highest-level ice hockey league in Germany. The team is based in Mannheim, a city in the northern par ...

. Following the 2015–16 campaign, he returned to his hometown team

. Hospelt played a further three seasons with Kölner Haie before leaving the club as a free agent following the 2018–19 season. He agreed to a one-year contract with his fourth DEL club, Krefeld Pinguine, on April 17, 2019.

International play

Hospelt has represented Germany's national team on numerous occasions. Twice (in 2002 and 2003) he played for Team Germany in the

IIHF World U18 Championship The IIHF U18 World Championship is an annual event organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation for national under-18 ice hockey teams from around the world. The tournament is usually played in April and is organized according to a sys ...

s. Three times (in 2003, 2004, and 2005) he represented them in the World Junior Championships. Six times (in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015) he suited up for the national team in the

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

. The largest honour came in 2010, when he suited up in the Olympic Games in Vancouver in 2010 and score one assist in four games as Germany fell in the qualification round. Having won 115 caps for the German men's national team, he announced his retirement from international ice hockey in July 2017.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hospelt, Kai 1985 births Living people Adler Mannheim players Grizzlys Wolfsburg players German ice hockey forwards Kölner Haie players Krefeld Pinguine players Ice hockey players at the 2010 Winter Olympics Olympic ice hockey players for Germany Ravensburg Towerstars players San Jose Sharks draft picks Sportspeople from Cologne