Mayhem contingent at the World Championships – Emily McLean, Felicity Gregory, Peter Hagan, Karl Nicholson and Nicola Terrell (Photo by GB Para Ice Hockey)
Mayhem sledge team players Felicity Gregory, Emily McLean and Nicola Terrell – along with Assistant Coach Karl Nicholson and Equipment Manager Peter Hagan – helped the Great Britain women’s para ice hockey team to a 4th place finish at the inaugural Women’s World Championships at Dolny Kubin in Slovakia last week.
Team GB won their opening group game with a narrow 2-1 victory over Team World. Mayhem’s Felicity Gregory scored both of the goals and was also named Player of The Game – but the next day saw a 0-7 defeat at the hands of Peggy Assinck’s Team Canada.
While a loss is always disappointing, this has to be taken in context because the GB girls put in a battling performance and this score-line was a great improvement over previous meetings between the two teams, which had all finished in double-figure deficits.
Finishing second in Group B meant that Team GB then had to face the winners of Group A, Team USA, in the semi final on the Saturday.
The Americans had not conceded a goal so far in the competition – nor indeed in the previous 3 years of international tournaments - so this was always likely to be a bit of an uphill struggle.
Both semi finals went very much to form with the USA beating GB 10-0 and Canada beating Norway 7-0 to set up an all North American final.
Great Britain, however, had a realistic chance of a medal with a bronze medal play off against Norway.
Unfortunately they never really got going in their 3rd v 4th game. Norway got an early goal and romped to a 6-0 win to take the bronze.
The match was refereed by former Widnes Wild Women’s player Philippa Mackinnon, who was a member of the pool of international match officials for the tournament.
The gold medal match saw Team USA beat Canada 7-1, meaning that Mayhem’s Canadian player Peggy Assinck, at least, came home with a silver medal from the inaugural Women’s World Championships.
