Saturday 25th
April 2026 – WNIHL Div 1 North: Caledonia Steel Queens 23 – Widnes
Wild Women 0
Stephanie Drinkwater
was Widnes MVP
away at Caledonia
(Photo by Nicola Cawthorne)
The Widnes
Wild Women were trounced 23-0 by league title hopefuls Caledonia Steel Queens
away in Edinburgh on Saturday.
The Widnes
team travelled to Scotland rather short on numbers and had just 11 skaters and
1 netminder. The minimum player requirement for a game to go ahead is 10+1 and
the maximum allowed on a bench is 20+2.
Caledonia iced
20 players in total, giving them an almost 2 to 1 advantage in playing numbers
and energy levels and, not surprisingly, they won this game at a light trot.
It actually
took the Steel Queens 4 minutes before they opened the scoring but, once they
did, the floodgates opened. Four more goals quickly followed within a 2 minute
period and the game was effectively over as a contest after just 7 minutes of
play.
Caledonia led
9-0 at the first break, 17-0 at the second break and 6 more goals were added in
the final period.
The league’s
most overworked netminder Stephanie Drinkwater faced an incredible 106 shots
over the 60 minute game and, to her credit, turned away 83 of them -
registering a 78.30 Save Percentage.
The 23-0
defeat is one for the record books as it beats Widnes’ previous highest losing
margin of 21-0 at the hands of the Bristol Huskies in the 2021/22 WPL season.
The Wild
Women’s rollercoaster Division 1 season comes to a close this Sunday 3rd
May when they entertain Nottingham Vipers at Planet Ice Widnes, 4.25pm face
off.
Widnes have
already beaten Nottingham once earlier in the season and will be hoping to go
out on a high note.
