Season finishes with a flourish
THE YKK sponsored Widnes Wild rounded off their regular Moralee Division campaign with a comprehensive 9-3 win over Sheffield Scimitars at Planet Ice Widnes on Sunday.
The game started well for Widnes with Player Coach Richard Haggar opening the scoring on four minutes and then doubling the advantage five minutes later.
Sheffield – who had arrived on Merseyside with a “2 and 1” record against the Wild so far for the season - gave as good as they got in the first period but were unable to breach the Widnes defences and the score remained 2-0 at the first break.
A straight hat-trick goal for Haggar just 16 seconds into the second period edged Widnes further ahead and then goals from Nathan Britton and Dani Haid saw the Wild leading 5-0 at the mid point in the game.
With one eye on next weekend’s play off quarter finals, Widnes eased off the gas after this and Sheffield were able to up their own part in the proceedings.
They scored two goals of their own in the latter stages of the second period to bring the score back to 5-2 and then a third strike three minutes into the final period narrowed the deficit to just two goals.
However, Mikey Gilbert fired in a 6th goal for Widnes just 90 seconds later to steady the ship and Widnes were back on top again.
Further goals followed from Vlads Vulkanovs, Liam Charnock and Dani Haid and the Wild finished off their debut season in the Moralee Division with a highly creditable 9-3 win.
After the game, Matty Barlow was named Wild Player of the Month for March.
The full Moralee Division schedule for the season was completed at the weekend as all teams played their final outstanding games.
The Wild finish up in third place in the league table with 18 wins from their 28 matches, which is an impressive achievement for a team playing up in this higher league for the first time.
Widnes’ Latvian import Vlads Vulkanovs finishes the season as the Moralee Division’s top goal scorer with 38 strikes and Richard
Haggar has the most assists with 42.
The Division’s top point scorer overall is Solway Sharks’ Peter Gapa with 33 goals and 34 assists.
Haggar and Vulkanovs are third and fourth in the overall scoring standings respectively.
In the league netminder standings, the Wild’s Harrison Walker finishes as the league’s top goalie with a 91.36% save percentage from 27 league matches, narrowly ahead of Whitley Warriors’ Dean Bowater with 91.12%.
● The main season may now be over for the Wild but there is still plenty of competitive ice hockey to come at Planet Ice Widnes.
The Wild take part in the Play Off quarter finals this weekend – travelling away to face Billingham Stars in the North East on Saturday 16th April, 5.30 pm face off.
The return leg is at Planet Ice Widnes the next day – Sunday 17th April – but will face off at the later time than normal of 7.30pm due to the rink also staging the Laidler Division play off finals as a neutral venue that same weekend.
The two Laidler semi finals will take place on the Saturday with league champions Telford Tigers 2 taking on 4th place finishers Sheffield Titans at 4.30pm and runners up Hull Jets taking on third place Sutton Sting at 7.30pm.
The winners of the two semi finals will meet in the Laidler final on Sunday – 4.30pm face off.
Weekend tickets covering the three Laidler play off games are available at £20 for adults, £10 for children and £15 for concessions.
Tickets can be purchased in advance from the NIHL Events Team via their website at: https://nihlevents.eiha.co.uk/tickets/
● The Wild have announced that the end of season presentation night for the NIHL men’s team will take place at the Village Club in Widnes on Friday 13th May from 7.30pm.
The evening will include the annual player awards, distribution of all “own and loan” shirts for the season and a buffet will also be served.
Tickets are £15 each and are on sale now from the Planet Ice box office.