Widnes Wild Women celebrate their first win of the season (Photo by Paul Breeze)
Sunday
25th January 2026 – WNIHL Div 1 North: Widnes Wild Women 3 – Nottingham Vipers 1
The Widnes Wild Women picked up their first win of
the season with a hard fought and well-deserved 3-1 victory over Nottingham
Vipers at Planet Ice Widnes on Sunday.
This was the same opposition that had hammered the
Wild Women 15-1 back in December in the Lace City so this really was a superb
performance.
And, to add some more context to this result, not
only was this the Wild Women’s first win of THIS season, it was actually their
first win at WPL level (as this division used to be known) since 17th
December 2017 when they won 0-2 away, also against the Vipers – although they
have won lots of games and two league titles in the lower division in the
meantime.
As you can imagine from the scoreline, the game was
very close throughout and it took until the 15th minute for
Nottingham to open the scoring, somewhat against the run of play.
The score remained 0-1 at the first period break
but Widnes equalised on 26 minutes with a goal from team captain Victoria
Connelly – her first of the season. The ice rink went wild 10 minutes later
when Lise Gillen fired in a powerplay goal punishing a Nottingham misconduct
penalty – putting the Wild ahead in a game for the first time this season.
With a 2-1 lead heading into the third period, all
Widnes needed to do was keep the Vipers out for another 20 minutes to clinch
their first win of the season.
Nottingham continued to look dangerous with their
attacks but the stubborn Wild defence was up to the task and kept them at bay.
Widnes also looked good pushing forward and had a number of chances of their
own.
The tension around the rink became unbearable as
the clock slowly ticked down with the score still at a very precarious 2-1.
Then, with just 2 minutes and 2 seconds left to
play, recent signing Emma Dutton fired in the Wild Women’s third goal and put
some daylight between the two teams for the first time in the game.
The pressure was lifted - to a certain extent – but
the Vipers upped their game trying to mount a late fightback.
With 40 seconds left on the clock, Widnes conceded
a tripping penalty and Nottingham withdrew their netminder in favour of an
extra attacker to put extra pressure on the Wild goal.
The Widnes girls managed to hold out, however, and
were able to celebrate their first win of the 2025/26 season.
Emma Dutton was the Wild Women's MVP against Nottingham (Photo by Paul Breeze)
The MVP (Most Valuable Player) awards for Wild Women home games are once again this season being sponsored by niche publishers Ice Hockey Review. They went to Clare Jones for Nottingham and Emma Dutton for Widnes.
The Wild Women are away in Scotland this Saturday 31st
January when they travel to face Solway Sharks for the second time this season.
They then have another away to trip - to Hull - on Sunday 15th February before
their next home game which is on Sunday 8th March against Solway,
again, at Planet Ice Widnes.
