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| Tom Kimm was on target for the Mayhem away at Peterborough (Photo by Blindside Trading Cards) |
Saturday 9th August 2025 – BPIHL: Peterborough Phantoms 6 – Mayhem 9
The Mayhem sledge team rounded off their regular season schedule with a superb 6-9 win away over Peterborough Phantoms on Saturday.
In their previous games this season, the Mayhem had put in some battling performances but things hadn’t gone their way in front of goal. However, everything clicked into place for this season finale and, despite travelling with an understrength squad, they saw their efforts rewarded.
They took the lead after just 33 seconds with a goal from Karl Nicholson and didn’t really look back after that. At the end of the first period, the score was 1-3 to the Mayhem and, at the end of the second, it was 3-6.
The game was highly entertaining to watch and the Phantoms clawed back to draw 6-6 midway through the third period. The result could easily have gone either way at this point, but Mayhem heads didn’t drop and goals from Nicholson (2) and Peggy Assinck made sure of the win.
Mayhem’s GB international player Karl Nicholson, scored 6 goals overall in the game to bring his total for the season to an impressive 18 - and the others were scored by Anton Tomlinson and Tom Kimm, as well as Assinck.
Last year’s champions Cardiff Huskies finish in 3rd place, following a disappointing season by their own high standards. They have the same number of points as the Phantoms but take the lower table position due to an inferior goal difference overall and an inferior playing record in games between the two teams.
The Mayhem finish in 4th place in the final standings for the second year in a row with 6 points from 8 games - two more than last season – and the Sheffield Steelstings development team prop up the rest of the table.
Attention now turns to the Great Britain Women’s Para team who will be taking part in the first ever official World Championships in Slovakia at the end of this month.
The GB squad is made up of players from across the various BPIHL teams and a number of players and staff from the Mayhem will also be involved.
The 2025 BPIHL season will finish off with the Play Offs, which will be held at Lee Valley Ice Centre over the weekend of 13th and 14th September.
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There are hopes that there may be a new sledge team in the league for next year after the recently formed Leeds Locomotives club held an introductory taster session at the West Yorkshire rink.
A number of newcomers to the sport went along to see what it was all about and try out the equipment and the Locomotives are now trying to build on this promising start to try and get enough people together to make a team viable.
There are currently only 5 teams in the British Para Ice Hockey League, playing across 4 venues: Cardiff Huskies, Peterborough Phantoms, the Mayhem at Widnes and the Steelkings and Steelstings at Sheffield.
There used to be a team based in Hull called the Kingston Kestrels but, sadly, they did not return to playing after the Covid closures and their place was taken up by the new Steelstings development to keep the numbers up.
The sport’s governing body – British Para Ice Hockey – are making great efforts to try and expand the game to new locations and, to this end, staged the end of season play offs at Nottingham last year and are holding them at Lee Valley in east London this year.
