Sledge Hockey 2025: Round-Up #12

The Sheffield Steelkings rounded off their BPIHL title winning league campaign with a hard fought 4-5 win away to Manchester Mayhem on Saturday.

They raced to a 0-2 lead after just 70 seconds but found the going harder after that as the Mayhem fought back and scored as many goals against them as they had conceded in all of their previous 7 games.

Daniel Clarke and Ben O’Brien each scored a brace for the Steelkings with Jake Oakley adding the other one.

The Mayhem goals came from Karl Nicholson (3) and Anthony Booth.

Peterborough Phantoms secured the runners up spot without having to hit a puck after receiving a 0-5 forfeit win from their away game against Manchester Mayhem.

The game had been scheduled for 19^th July but had to be cancelled due to technical problems at the Widnes rink.

Both teams have players who are going to represent Great Britain at the Women’s World Championships later in the month and there were no suitable dates before then for the game to be re-arranged.

In the meantime, the Mayhem travel down to Peterborough this Saturday 9^th August to play the Phantoms in what will be the last league game for both teams – and, indeed, the final game overall of the BPIHL regular schedule for 2025.

Dragons Announce Pre-Season Challenge Matches

The Deeside Dragons NIHL2 team have announced that they will begin their season with back to back friendly matches against Bradford Bulldogs before their NIHL Laidler Division campaign gets under way.

They will take on the Bulldogs at home at Deeside Leisure Centre on Saturday 30^th August – face off 5.15 pm – and travel away to West Yorkshire for the return fixture the next day.

Their regular season starts the following Saturday 6^th September when they travel to play the Sheffield Titans

The senior Dragons Moralee Division team start their season off with home and away challenge matches against Division 1 new boys Telford Tigers, playing at home on Saturday 6^th September and away the following day.

Their first league game of the season is at home to Sheffield Scimitars on Saturday 13^th September at Deeside Leisure Centre.

Match Report: Whitley Bay Islanders 9 – Connah’s Quay Cobras 2 (Summer Classic Cup)

Emma Dutton was on target for the Cobras against Whitley (Photo by RDG Digital)

Saturday 2^nd August – Summer Classic Cup: Whitley Bay Islanders 9 – Connah’s Quay Cobras 2

The Connah’s Quay Cobras look set to miss out on the play offs of the Summer Classic Cup after a bad tempered 9-2 defeat away to Whitley Bay Islanders on Saturday.

The home game in Deeside back in June had been a very close affair with the Cobras narrowly winning 4-3 so this was always likely to be a difficult away trip to the North East.

The game was disrupted by a number of fights and had to finish before the full 60 minutes had been played as it over-ran the ice time allocation.

It took until the third period for the Cobras to find the back of the net and their goals were scored by Sam Plant and Emma Dutton.

The Islanders’ win means that they move level on points with the Cobras in the group table but take the higher position above them due to a superior goal difference.

Whitley Bay still have one game left to play – at home to unbeaten group leaders Don Valley Vikings - and a heavy enough defeat (by 21 goals or more) would overturn their goal difference advantage and hand the second qualifying spot in the final table to the Cobras, but that seems rather unlikely.

Match Report: Mayhem 4 – Sheffield Steelkings 5 (British Para Ice Hockey League)

Mayhem netminder Daniel Hartshorn makes a save against Sheffield (Photo by Roksana Oniszczuk)

Saturday 2nd August 2025 – British Para Ice Hockey League: Mayhem 4 – Sheffield Steelkings 5

The Mayhem sledge team put in a brave and battling performance against recently crowned champions Sheffield Steelkings in their last home game of the British Para Ice Hockey League season but narrowly lost out 4-5 at Planet Ice Widnes on Saturday.

This was a very entertaining game to watch and the result remained in doubt until the very last seconds.  While a defeat is always disappointing, to put the performance in perspective, the Steelkings had only conceded 4 goals in total in their previous 7 league games.

The game started badly for the Mayhem as the Steelkings opened the scoring after just 37 seconds. 35 seconds later it was 0-2 to the champions and things were looking rather grim.

Luckily the Mayhem were able to steady the ship at that point, tighten up their defence and put a few plays together of their own. 

Sheffield eventually extended their lead to three goals in the 10th minute but the Mayhem fought back with a brace of well taken strikes from Karl Nicholson on 12 minutes and 14 minutes to bring the score to 2-3 at the first period break.

Just 48 seconds into the second period it was all level as Anthony Booth fired in a superb equaliser for the Mayhem.  The home team were on top for much of the second period and put the Sheffield goal under considerable pressure. 

Unfortunately, they were not able to find the back of the net again and Sheffield eventually scored on 24 minutes to retake the lead. That completed the scoring for the second period and left the score at a very close 3-4 at the second interval.

The third period was also very tense and closely contested. Sheffield edged further ahead with a goal on 35 minutes but the Mayhem hit back just 30 seconds later to reduce the deficit back to one single goal, with Karl Nicholson rounding off his hat-trick.

The last ten minutes were agonisingly nail-biting as both teams had their chances but were unable to make any of them count. 

Mayhem netminder Daniel Hartshorn pulled off some very brave saves - some from point blank range - to keep his team in the game and both sides battled away until the last second. 

The game ended in a 4-5 victory for Sheffield but the Mayhem’s tally of 4 was the most goals that the Steelkings had conceded in a match all season.

The MVP awards went to Kirsty van der Poll for Sheffield and team captain Mark Colquitt for the Mayhem

Mayhem captain Mark Colquitt was MVP against Sheffield
(Photo by Roksana Oniszczuk)

The Mayhem actually suffered two defeats last week – the one against Sheffield on the ice and another off it.

The home game against Peterborough Phantoms that had been scheduled for 19th July and had to be cancelled due to technical problems at the Widnes rink will not now be rearranged and has been awarded as a 0-5 forfeit win to the Phantoms.

Both teams have players who are going to represent Great Britain at the Women’s World Championships later in the month and there were no suitable dates before then for the game to be re-arranged.

In the meantime, the Mayhem travel down to Peterborough this Saturday 9th August to play the Phantoms in what will be the last league game for both teams.

Following the forfeit win, Peterborough are now second in the BPIHL table – overtaking Cardiff Huskies who have already completed all their games - and will finish as runners up irrespective of Saturday’s result .

The Mayhem will finish the regular season in 4th place, which means that they qualify for the end of season play offs, which will be held at Lee Valley Ice Centre over the weekend of 13th and 14th September.