Gold Medals R Us!
11th March 2004When the Under 20 team returned from Lithuania with the Gold Medal we were so thrilled with their performance on and off the ice! All the players and staff were duly congratulated and we settled back to life as normal here at Ice Hockey UK.
Then the Under 18s went to Lithuania and, guess what! They came back with the Gold Medal!
Much credit must go to the coaching and management staff who work tirelessly for the GB programme with these young players. The hours of unpaid work that goes into gathering together teams, arranging training and finding ways to forge such incredible team spirit cannot be underestimated.
How we would love to be able to send our national teams to training camps in Italy as the GB Women's rowing team were doing when the Under 20s were on their way to Lithuania without any time together at all. Ice Hockey UK wrote to UKSport to let them know that our team had brought back the Gold, we are still waiting for a reply. We will be writing to them again to tell them about our Under 18s, too.
The lack of funding for our players of the future is galling. Every year we have to count the cost of not having any money for off-ice kit, training time etc. Without our main sponsors, the Great Britain Supporters Club the boys wouldn't even have had warm coats. Our physiotherapists are supplied by SportsHealth Ltd of Hull free of charge and are a vital part of our team. This year those sponsors and all who work so very hard to put the GB programme on the road for the World Championships have been richly rewarded.
Our Women's team fly out to Vipiteno in the Italian Alps this weekend and the Senior Men's team to Oslo in Norway in April. We are hoping for medals in both cases, wonder what colour they will be?!
A HUGE thank you to all the staff and players!