U13s lose but win via forfeit

THE Widnes Wild Academy U13s team came away with the points from their league game at Deeside on Saturday after the Dragons’ U13s were not able to muster enough players for the clash to count as a league fixture.

It was the U13 team’s first-ever competitive game and was still quite a test as they came up against players who had already been playing competitive junior hockey together for the Dragons for several seasons.

The fledgling Wild team actually lost the game 23-2 – with the Widnes goals coming from Sebastian Knowles and Adam Vigh-Yecsey and assists from Tristan Lewis and Nicholas Highcock.

However, league rules state that each team must have 11 players on their bench for the game to be recognised as a league match and, as the Dragons team only had seven players plus one netminder, this was a breach of regulations.

Because of this, the league game was forfeited and the Wild handed a 5-0 win and two league points and the game was considered as a challenge game instead.

The Wild Academy U13s team have a game at Grimsby on Sunday, November 4 and are at home for the first time on Saturday, November 10 when they play host to Blackburn U13s at Planet Ice Widnes.

The game has a 6.50pm face-off time. ● The British Para Ice Hockey Association held their end of season playoffs at the Planet Ice rink in Widnes over the weekend.

The two semi-finals on Saturday saw league champions Kingston Kestrels from Hull exorcise the Peterborough Phantoms 7-2 and the Cardiff Huskies just get the better of the Manchester Mayhem 2-1.

In the third-place game on Sunday morning, the Mayhem overcame Peterborough in a close and entertaining game, winning out by a final scoreline of 6-4.

In the final, Kingston had to ice a depleted team and Cardiff eventually emerged victorious in another highly-entertaining encounter winning the game 9-4.