Laura Bibby was the Wild Women's MVP against Sheffield (Photo by Paul Breeze)
Sunday 12th April 2026 – WNIHL Division 1 North: Widnes Wild Women 2 – Sheffield Shadows 10
The Widnes Wild Women got off to a good start in their latest WNIHL Division 1 North game at home to Sheffield Shadows before eventually losing out 2-10 at Planet Ice Widnes on Sunday.
The game was quite even in its early stages, with the Wild Women giving as good as they got. However, disaster struck in the 8th minute when there was a mix up in defence and the puck somehow trickled over the goal line to hand Sheffield the lead.
While this was technically an “own goal”, you don’t have own goals in ice hockey and the goal was credited to the last Shadows player to have touched the puck before it went in the net.
The Wild Women quickly recovered from this early setback and Tayla Huxley-Richards fired in a superb equalising goal on 11 minutes, and the score remained 1-1 at the first period break.
Widnes actually went ahead on 23 minutes with a superb goal from Jennifer Hickey but the lead only lasted 87 seconds before Sheffield equalised. They then edged back in front on 26 minutes and added another goal just 58 seconds after that to lead 2-4 at the halfway stage of the game.
Things got worse for the Wild Women in what was left of the second period as Sheffield scored 5 unanswered goals to lead 2-9 at the second break.
The Widnes ship was steadied in the third period, however, and, while they were unable to make anything from their own chances in front of goal, they did - at least - manage to restrict the visitors to just one goal for a final score of 2-10.
Overworked netminder Stephanie Drinkwater put in her habitual heroic performance in the Widnes goals, turning away an impressive 77 of the 87 shots that she faced.
The MVP (Most Valuable Player) awards for Wild Women home games are once again this season being sponsored by niche publishers Ice Hockey Review and, as well as the usual trophies, the winners also receive special edition pens handcrafted and donated by Anthony Stock.
The awards were presented by the goal judge Lynda Bird and went to Charley Farr for Sheffield and Laura Bibby for Widnes.
The Wild Women are away to Kingston Diamonds in Hull this Sunday 19th April and then have a trip north of the border to face the Caledonia Steel Queens in Edinburgh the Saturday after.
They are next at home on Sunday 3rd May when they take on Nottingham Vipers in their last game of the season at Planet Ice Widnes, 4.25pm face off.
