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| The Wild Women celebrate their 2020 title win (Photo by Mo Muir) |
The Widnes Wild Women play their last home game of the season this Sunday 27th April when they take on Caledonia Bees at Planet Ice Widnes and their mission is clear. If they can win this game and then win their final league game away at Leeds Roses on 10th May, they will secure the Division 2 North league title.
The Wild Women currently top the Division 2 North league table with 15 points - a playing record of six wins, three draws and one defeat from their 10 games to date. There is a chasing pack of three more teams who are also still in with a chance of the title – perennial challengers Telford Wrekin Raiders, Sheffield Shadows and Leeds Roses. Sheffield and Telford are currently vying for second place and have 14 and 13 points respectively from 10 games.
Leeds are playing catch up in the fixture list and have 2 games in hand. The good news for the Wild Women is that the Roses have games against both Telford and Sheffield over the weekend of 3rd and 4th May so it is likely that, depending on those results, one or more of those teams will be played out of the title race by the time Widnes play Leeds the weekend after.
With there only being 12 matches in the league schedule this season, the table is very tight and the title may well be decided by a single point margin or less. This works in Widnes’ favour at present as teams that finish on the same number of points are separated by results in matches played between them.
With the Wild Women having beaten Sheffield both home and away and also having beaten Telford narrowly at home after a draw away in Shropshire, they would take the top spot if they were to finish on the same number of points as either of those two teams.
On paper, the home game against Caledonia should be the easier of the two games in the Wild Women’s title run-in. The Edinburgh-based Bees are a new team in the division for this season and are a development team for the Caledonia Steel Queens who play in Division 1. They are bottom of the league table, having lost all 11 of their games to date, with a goal difference of minus 81. The Wild Women beat them 4-12 when they ventured north of the border back in December.
But there is no such thing as a certainty in ice hockey and games still need to be won - so the Wild women will need to be at their very best on Sunday.
The away game at Leeds is likely to be a very different kettle of fish entirely and the Wild Women only very narrowly beat them 2-1 in the recent encounter in Widnes. Depending on the other results in the intervening period, the game on 10th May could well be a deciding “winner takes all” clash for the league title.
The Wild Women previously won the league title in the 2019/20 season. They finished second in the league in 2022/23.
WNIHL Div2N Remaining Fixtures:
- Widnes v Caledonia 27th Apr
- Leeds v Kingston 27th Apr
- Leeds v Sheffield 3rd May
- Telford v Leeds 4th May
- Leeds v Widnes 10th May
- Sheffield v Whitley 10th May
- Telford v Kingston 11th May
