Monday 28 December 2015

Bumper Crowd For Widnes Charity Match In Aid Of Ronald McDonald House

GB Women's international netminder Nicole Jackson in action
Photo by Graham Warren
A huge festive crowd turned out to watch two Widnes-based teams play a special challenge match for charity at the Silver Blades ice rink in Widnes.

The Widnes Wild Laidler Conference side took on the Riverside Raiders recreational team and while that might sound little one -sided it was all in a very good cause and the Raiders team was bolstered with a few guest players to balance things out a bit.

The final score was 11-3 to the Wild and might well have been lot more had it not been for the heroics of women's GB International netminder Nicole Jackson (in photo) who played most the game in the Raiders net.

The game was played for the Antony Morris Cup - which will now be annual event. The trophy has been named in memory of the Widnes Wildcats rec player who died recently after an accident. Members of Antony's family attended the game and performed the ceremonial dropping of the puck at the start.

We have already covered the guest players who were icing for the Raiders in a previous news posting (here) but there were also some players guesting for the Widnes Wild team as well.   Netminder Barry Sprakes played in goal for the Wild and had a very good game against some of his regular teammates and it was also nice to see British League veteran player Richard Charles making an appearance as well. 

Charles is an assistant coach with the Wild and played a few games for them in their debut 2013/14 season.  He learnt his hockey with the highly successful Dundee club in the 1980s and also played for Blackburn Hawks and Fife Flyers in the 1990s. 

It was all just a bit of fun so there isn't really a need for "who did what when" type of match report but just for the record, here is a list of the players who played for  each team  and details of the scorers.

Scott McKenzie as a Riverside Raider
Photo by Graham Warren
Sunday 27th December 2015 – Antony Morris Cup Charity Game
Widnes Wild 11 – Riverside Raiders 3
Period Scores: 3-1, 3-1, 5-1
Penalties In Minutes: Wild 2 – Raiders 2

Wild Team (Scoring In Brackets):
George Crawshaw (1+2), Ken Armstrong, Dan Bullock (0+2), Geoff Wigglesworth (0+4), Lee Kemp, Michal Fico (4+0), Calum Ruddick, Richard Charles, Chris Gee (0+2), Chris Preston (1+0), Kieran Strangeway (0+1), Tom Jackson, Sheldon Cassidy (3+2), Shaun Dipnall (2+2), Barry Sprakes (NM)   

Raiders Team (Scoring in Brackets):
Nicole Jackson (NM), Nick Jackson, Martyn Hully (NM), James Mansfield, Matthew Lennox, Josh Grocutt (0+1), Geraint Lewis (1+0), Adam Jenkins, Michael Gilbert, Jack Walker, Jesse McClure, Jon Anderson (0+1), Michael Stevenson, Sarah Hutchinson, Dan Bracegirdle (0+1), Tom Court, Jordan Birtwistle, Tony Smallwood (1+0), Scott McKenzie (1+0)

Photos by Graham Warren - see more of his great ice hockey photos  HERE