Recreational players from across the North West have been invited to join a new ice hockey team, which will see them taking part in overseas tournaments - flying the flag for their region and country.
Rather like the British Lions rugby union representative team, the new North West Lions tournament ice hockey team has been set up especially to play matches abroad and, as its name suggests, will comprise players taken from the north west rinks of Widnes, Deeside, Altrincham and Blackburn.
With the costs and time commitments involved in travelling abroad for this sort of event being a problem for many, it has always been difficult in the past for regular recreational teams to get enough players to be able to take part - and the idea of this new team is to draw together a suitable pool players from across the region to be able to send a strong enough team to compete against foreign opposition.
The Lions have been invited to take part in an 8-team tournament in Vlasim in the Czech Republic next April and, assuming that the restrictions on foreign travel and sporting events have been relaxed by then, that will be their first competitive outing.
Planning is still in its very early stages and any players interested in being involved with the North West Lions are asked to get in touch via the Facebook page HERE
