This past week in Östersund, Sweden the Sledge Hockey World Championships: Pool-B have been taking place and saw Great Britain making the trip to the Scandinavian country in search of a top two finish and have them looking to progress Pool- A. GB’s opponents in this tournament sees them against Austria, Slovakia, Poland and the two pre-tournament favourites in Korea and the host nation of Sweden.
The opening two games of the tournament saw big wins for both Sweden and Korea to get their respective tournament up and running. Hosts Sweden beat Poland 8-1 with Rasmus Lundgren netting twice in the victory, meanwhile Korea hammered Austria 9-0 with five goals coming in the final period through Seung-Hwan Jung scoring a hat trick and Ju-Seung Lee claiming a brace in the huge win for the Koreans as we.
Britain’s opening game in the tournament saw a highly disappointing loss with Slovakia blanking Great Britain 6-0, with two quick goals coming in the space of 49 seconds in the opening five minutes. GB conceded just the one goal in the second period, but in the third a further two goals by the Slovaks saw them complete victory over Great Britain. For GB it was a case of back to the drawing board and hoping to put this loss to the side and recover for Round 2.
However the only bright light of the game for GB, came in the shape of netminder Bryan Hackworth from the Sheffield Steelkings, as the netminder faced 26 shots in the contest compared to his counterpart who faced only 5 shots, one shot more than Austria posted in their loss to the Koreans.
Day 2 and the Koreans went ballistic in the opening game of the day at the Ostersund Arena Hall, where the Korean side won 15-0 against Poland and where Andrzej Mlynarczyk in the Polish nets faced 40 shots in the game. Seung-Hwan Jung netted another four goals in a game, as team mate Min-Su Han, scored a hat trick with two of them coming on the power play as the Korean side kept a health goal difference in the standings.
Great Britain overcame Austria to claim their first points in these World Championships in their second group game, with John Neville’s side edging their opponents 2-1 thanks to a double by Cardiff’s Tyler Christopher. Christopher’s brace put GB two goals up in the match, that was before Martin Pachoinig then replied for the Austrians to set up a tense finale to the game with less than 8 minutes to go in the contest. In truth, GB should have beaten their opponents far more convincing than they did, but some loose passing and not finding their intended targets saw it a much tighter affair than it needed to be. The Brits came out as winners and a performance that was improved massively from their first outing.
Sweden made it two from two in their third game, as they beat Slovakia 5-1 with Per Kasperi scoring twice in the win to keep the pressure up on the Koreans for top spot. The Swedes led 2-0 and after a power play goal by Miroslav Stasak cut the lead in half, it saw the hosts netting a further three times to see them finally kill off the Slovaks.
Poland and Austria faced off in opening game of Round 3, where the Poles came out on top beating their fellow European counterparts 3-0, with goals by Radoslaw Drapala and Sylwester Flis as Flis scored a couple in the game to hand Poland the game and pick up their first win.
Korea kept up their record of scoring at least 8 goals a game so far in this tournament, as they inflicted another thrashing this time on Slovakia, as they beat them 9-1 to move to a +21 in the goal difference column. Forward Seung-Hwan Jung proved he is the Player of the tournament so far, as the Korean scored four more goals to take his total to 11 goals in 3 games so far. Marian Ligda then scored a consolation goal towards the end of the second period for the Slovaks, but the Koreans side always had the extra gears to move up in and scored a few more to complete the rout and look far in a way, the best side in this tournament.
The final game of the night was an absolute cracker between Great Britain and the hosts Sweden. Prior to the game, Sweden on paper looked far stronger than that of GB and the results in the previous rounds seemed to suggest that. However, no one expected the performance that the Great Britain side produced, especially in the opening period as they put on a staunch defensive display to see them frustrate the Swedes 0-0 after the opening period whilst being outshot 13 to 2.
Sadly though for GB, the Swedes managed to get the breakthrough and had Per Kasperi scoring twice to put the home side 3-0 up. GB then scored through Kingston Kestrels forward Matt Woolias, as him and his fellow Kestrels teammate in Matt Clarkson broke up ice scored on a 2-on-0, with Woolias dispatching the puck by Ulf Nilsson at his near post for a 3-1 score.
In the final period of play, it saw the score cut in half to 4-2 for Sweden as Tyler Christopher scored his third of the tournament, after a mistake by Nilsson in the Swedish goals saw his attempted clearance turn into an air shot and Christopher was quick to react first and tapped in for a two goal game. Sweden then went up a gear and had Peter Ojala score a breakaway goal, before Niklas Ingvarsson scored the goal of the game with an effort, as his fired from the left face-off circle and it flown in over Hackworth head and into the GB nets for the sixth.
Bryan Hackworth who has been the GB player of the tournament in my view, put on a goaltending clinic to deny the Swede on many occasions and kept the scored close, when Sweden was really hammering home their advantage in the contest. A 6-2 defeat by Sweden all but ended the hopes of a top two finish for Great Britain, but the performance of the GB players was immense throughout the whole game and was more important that the score. The Swedish players were quoted as saying that GB was the toughest game they had faced so far. Another reason John Neville and the GB fans can be proud of the guys, is a couple of years ago with an experienced squad in 2013, the GB side was hammered 22-0 by the Swedes and this result shows what can happen if given a chance.
This result with inexperienced players in their ranks saw them running the Swedes closer than the score line suggests, plus the fact the players had to pay their way to make it to Sweden, due to lack of any funding coming from British Sport and the fact the game was close makes the result even more incredible too and hopefully something can be worked to help the GB sledge hockey side in future tournaments.
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