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| Wild Women at the Play Offs in 2017 (left to right): Sav Sumner, Sophie Sinclair Reeks, Tegan Lavery, Abigail Hayes, Beckie Elliott, Leen de Decker, Lucy Kirkham, Katie Hills, Sarah Roberts & Emma Pearson. (Photo by MyTeamPhoto.com) |
The Widnes Wild women’s team head to Sheffield at the weekend to take part in the Women’s National Ice Hockey League (WNIHL) Play Offs, which will run over 3 days and feature 13 games in total.
As champions of Division 2 North, the Wild Women will take on Streatham Storm (2nd team), who finished second in Division 2 South, in their semi final - giving them a, possibly, slightly easier match than if they had finished second themselves and then had to face D2S champions Cambridge.
They will play in the second semi final, which faces off at 8.15pm on Saturday evening. The other semi final sees Telford take on Cambridge with a 6pm start time. The Division 2 final is at 2.45pm on the Sunday and the winner will secure the Play Off title as well as promotion to Division 1 for next season.
The other games over the weekend see the semi finals and final for the Division 1, the Women’s Elite League and the Girls’ Under 16 championship, as well as the promotion / relegation match between the winners of the D1 final and the bottom team in the Elite League.
This is the Wild Women’s 4th trip to the play offs. On each previous occasion, they have bowed out at the semi final stage and have never yet got through to the final.
They reached the Play Offs two seasons running in their early years when they were in the Women’s Premier League (now called WNIHL Division 1). They were runners up in the league in 2015/16 and narrowly lost 2-1 to Streatham Storm (1st team) in the play off semi final and finished 4th in 2016/17, losing to the same opposition again 6-1.
The Wild Women won the Division 1 North league title (which is now the equivalent of Division 2 North) in the 2019/20 season and qualified for the play offs once again, but they never took place because of the Coronavirus pandemic.
They came second in the third tier in the 2022/23 season and lost 3-1 in the play-off semi final to D2S champions Cardiff, so will be hoping to go one better this time around.
- 09.00: Division 1 Semi Final 1
- 11.15: Division 1 Semi Final 2
- 13.30: Elite Semi Final 1
- 15.45: Elite Semi Final 2
- 18.00: Division 2 Semi Final 1
- 20.15: Division 2 Semi Final 2
- 09.00: Under 16 Semi Final 1
- 10.45: Under 16 Semi Final 2
- 12.30: Division 1 Final
- 14.45: Division 2 Final
- 17.00: Elite Final
- 09.00: Under 16 Final
- 10.45: Elite v Div 1 Relegation Match
