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| Widnes Wild Women MVP against Sheffield Catherine Fell (Photo by Paul Breeze) |
Sunday 14th September 2025 – WNIHL Div 1 North: Widnes Wild Women 2 – Sheffield Shadows 16
The Widnes Wild Women had a baptism of fire in their first league game of
the new WNIHL season, losing 2-16 at home to Sheffield Shadows at Planet Ice Widnes
on Sunday.
This was their first game back at this level for three seasons, having
won promotion to Division 1 North after winning Division 2 North title last
season and, with quite a bit of player upheaval over the course of the summer,
it was always going to be a bit of a steep learning curve.
Sunday’s game saw Widnes debuts for three summer signings:
Maggie Whitmore, a
former Widnes Academy Under 16 junior who played the last 2 seasons with the
Telford Wrekin Raiders and is also playing up for the Solihull Vixens Elite
League team this season
Nicola Wallace, who
has also played for the Telford Wrekin Raiders for the past 3 seasons.
And Ilyssa
Flemmington, who played with the Manchester Storm Under 16 girls team last
season and this year is on a 2-way between the new Blackburn Hawks women’s team
and Widnes.
The game actually started quite well for Widnes and they matched their
more experienced opponents in the early stages.
It took until the 8th minute for the first breakthrough and
that fell to Sheffield. By the end of the first period, the score was 0-4 to
the visitors and they were 0-6 up by the time that Leen de Decker fired in the
first Widnes goal of the new season on 28 minutes.
4 more goals followed for Sheffield – including 3 within 90 seconds of
each other - but Lise Gillen gave the home fans something to cheer about with a
breakaway powerplay goal on 37 minutes which left the score at 2-10 at the
second interval.
Despite the scoreline, this wasn’t one-way traffic and Widnes had their
chances throughout the game but were unable to make much headway against the
well-organised Sheffield defence and netminder and 6 more unanswered goals in
the third period handed the Shadows an emphatic victory.
Much of the damage was caused by Sheffield’s Alisha Potts who is a GB
Under 18 international player on a 2-way deal with Elite League reigning
champions Solihull Vixens. She scored 8
of the goals and had a hand in 3 more.
With several other Shadows players also on 2-ways with Elite League
clubs, it is not at all surprising that the Wild Women found this encounter
something of a challenge.
Widnes netminder Stephanie Drinkwater put in an heroic performance in the
Wild goal. She faced an eye-watering 78 shots, saving an impressive 62 of them,
and did much to keep the score down.
The MVP (Most Valuable Player) awards are once again this season being
sponsored by niche publishers Ice Hockey Review and were presented by Lynda
Bird. They went to Alisha Potts for
Sheffield and Catherine Fell for Widnes.
The Wild Women are back in action this Saturday when they travel north of
the border to take on the Caledonia Steel Queens in Edinburgh, 12.15 (noon...)
face off. They are next at home on
Sunday 26th October when they entertain the Steel Queens at Planet
Ice Widnes, 4.25pm face off.
