The Widnes Wild Academy junior teams had a mostly positive weekend with wins for the Under 14s against Sutton and Under 18Bs away at Solihull and a narrow defeat for the Under 18As away to Bradford.
The Wild Academy U18B team came away from Solihull on Saturday with a 2-5 victory courtesy of goals by Jared Knowles (2), Harry Kay, Alex Reid and Charlie Scott. Netminder Harry Bird turned away 40 of the 42 shots that he faced.
The Wild Academy Under 14 team recorded an emphatic 13-1 victory over Sutton Under 14s at Planet Ice Widnes on Sunday.
The final score was actually 16-1 to Widnes but due to a well meaning - but ultimately unfair - mercy/slaughter rule introduced by the EIHA, heavily one-sided scorelines are discouraged and counting stops once the deficit gets to a certain level.
The idea behind this rule is to avoid young players getting too discouraged when they are at this early stage of their development but it also has the negative effect of not recognising any of the players’ achievements that happen after the cut-off point in the game – even if the losing team scores any more goals themselves.
Caleb Eddleston led the scoring for Widnes with 4 goals and 3 assists with Evan Walker scoring 3+3 and Ollie Cliffe 4+1. Oliver Kitchen chipped in with 2-2, Ben Roberts 2+1 and Daniel Teinert 1+1 but not all of these goals get credited to the players’ records as 3 of the goals came after the mercy cut off.
The Wild Under 18 A team lost 9-5 away to Bradford on Sunday. The Widnes youngsters actually matched their hosts for much of the game and narrowly outshot them by 69 to 62 over the 60 minutes. The Widnes goals were scored by Gregor Donaldson (2), Aidan Lamb, Mack Harris and Cian Shorrock.
The Wild Academy Under 10 team hosted a 4 team “cross-ice” tournament at Widnes on Sunday where they took on Deeside, Manchester and Blackburn. Cross ice games are played purely for fun and no match scores or player stats are recorded.
This weekend sees the Wild Academy Under 14 team away to Sutton on Saturday - 4.45pm face off - and the Under 18B team at home to Whitley - also on Saturday - at Planet Ice Widnes, 6pm start.
Admission is free for all spectators to Wild Academy home games at Planet Ice Widnes and fans are encouraged to go along and support the stars of the future.
