Ice Hockey: Wild Women awards night
Paul Breeze returns with the latest news from Widnes Wild
AWARD WINNER: Wild women’s Laura Marcroft receives her award from (left to right) Thomas Horner (coach), Leen de Decker (captain) and Steve Furber (coach) – (Image: Wild Women’s team)
The DMUK Widnes Wild women’s team held their end of season awards evening at the Village Hotel in Warrington where the following accolades were presented for the 2022/23 season:
- Coaches’ Award - Charlotte Cramp
- Best Defence - Lucy Kirkham
- Best Forward - Phoebe Patient
- Most Points - Leen De Decker
- Players’ Player - Charlotte Cramp
- Unsung Hero - Laura Marcroft
- Most Improved - Sophie Hill
Popular cult figure Pauline Hayward was also presented with a light hearted award for being the “Toughest Player” after continuing to play through the home game against Grimsby with a fractured patella! Looking back over season as a whole, Head Coach Adam Lappin said: “The season went very well with some great development and growth from everyone. We were aiming for a top 3 finish and we hit form at the right time to achieve this.”
“The playoffs were a good experience for all, as there were not many in the team who had been exposed to that environment. We had a good plan, but we wanted all players to play their game and use it as a stepping stone for the new season, and to use the playoff weekend as a learning experience. Overall, I can not fault the ladies for their team spirit and overall team ethos.”
The 2023 Play Off Semi Final was the team’s 101stmatch since forming as the Wild Women for the start of the 2015/16 season. In that time they have won 34 games, lost 56 and drawn 11 – scoring 389 goals and conceding 562. The Wild Women won the Division 1 North league title in the 2019/20 season and were runners up in the Women’s Premier League in 2015/16 and Division 2 North this - 2022/23 - season.
Mikey Gilbert back in the wild
The Widnes Wild team have announced that highly-rated forward Mikey Gilbert will be returning to the club for the forthcoming 2023/24 NIHL season. This will be Gilbert’s seventh season with Widnes and, in his six seasons to date at Widnes – including the COVID lockdown cup series - he has played 160 games for the Wild, contributing 78 goals and 114 assists, picking up 200 penalty minutes.
Mikey was a member of the Wild team that won three Laidler Play Off titles in a row in 2017,18 & 19, secured the Laidler Division league title in 2019, won the 2021 NIHL North Cup and Division 1 National Championship and the Moralee Cup in 2022. He is also the General Manager at the Planet Ice rink in Widnes and head coach of the highly successful Wild Junior Academy.
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Wild Head Coach Joey Couch said of Gilbert: “Michael is a pleasure to work with and I’m looking forward to seeing him take the next couple of steps in his development at Widnes next year. He’s already an established player but he has a lot more to offer and I think he slides right into our style of hockey.”
“Gilbert is a coach’s dream as he loves to implement the systems in place, very effective on special teams and just all round plays the game the way I think will lead us to success this season. Mikey does all the little things right, he’s not a highlight reel guy and a lot of his on-ice contributions probably go unnoticed to the untrained eye, but I know for sure he will be a big player for us this year.”
Three more Wild England Internationals
Three more Widnes Wild players earned England international call ups when they were invited to take part in a weekend junior tournament in Bratislava, Slovakia. Rhys Edwards was one of the leading players in the Wild senior NIHL team last season but, as he was only 16 at the start of the campaign, he has also been eligible to be selected for junior representative teams. He was joined on the trip by Wild NIHL player Kohen Taylor and Gabriel Lingard, who iced once for Widnes as a back up netminder last season.
A group of England Under 16 and Under 17 players made the trip to take part in the 3-day tournament that saw them play against national teams from Ireland and Scotland, a Czech select side and also a local Slovak junior team from the host Homoikovo rink. Wild Academy Head Coach and Widnes NIHL player Mike Gilbert also accompanied the England team as a member of the coaching staff.
Edwards, Taylor and Lingard join an ever growing list of Widnes Wild players who have been have been given England call ups, following in the footsteps of Sophia Green who played for England girls in Bratislava earlier in the year, Jared Knowles - who played in a Scotland v England tournament - and Matty Barlow who played for England U23s against Denmark last season.
Halton Huskies at Hull tournament
The Halton Huskies team went to Hull and back at the weekend to take part in the annual Ricky Barker memorial cup tournament. The event is staged every year by the Hull Knights club in memory of the devoted off-ice official who died in 2017, aged just 53. The Huskies stepped up a level to play in the Elite competition this year and they came up against much stronger teams in the Hull Knights (hosts), Blackburn Renegades, Sheffield Ice Tigers, Newcastle Coyotes and eventual tournament winners Leeds Lightning – losing all 5 of their group games.
Halton team manager Stephen Hay said of the weekend: “We did play in the Elite division in the tournament, whereas we've been in the Dev league. I think that shows where we are as a club, in a middle space between the two. It's helped us identify what we need to improve on and how hard we've got to work if we want to move up a level. As always it was a great weekend and a well-run tournament.”
Last home game of season for mayhem
The Mayhem sledge team play their last home fixture of the 2023 British Para Ice Hockey League season this Sunday, July 16 when they entertain the Sheffield SteelStings at Planet Ice Widnes, 6pm face off. There is a lot riding on this game as the Mayhem need to win in order to have any chance of qualifying for the end of season play offs. Following Sunday’s match, the Mayhem have a long wait until August 20 to play their final game of the regular season away to the other Sheffield based team, the Steelkings.
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