Queenstown’s Wakatipu Wild women’s ice hockey team’s season got off to a flyer on Friday night, downing Canterbury Inferno 5-0 — all five points on the board courtesy of Kellye Nelson.
And while the Wild went down 2-1, in overtime, at the Queenstown Ice Arena on Saturday, coach Colin McIntosh feels like the team’s got the makings to take out the 2022 championship.
McIntosh says the Wild’s grown from its inaugural year, in 2020, where they managed to find enough players to field a team ‘‘but not much more’’, to a breeding ground for talent.
Friday night’s game saw three young players — Polly Bennetts, 14, Jessie Strain and Manuella Pedrosa, both 15 — all make their New Zealand Women’s Ice Hockey League debuts, and hold their own on the ice.
They were joined on Friday by Dana Bergmann, who started out in QBL, a beginners’ league designed to teach the basics of ice hockey, and was subsequently picked as a development player.
Because the Wild’s players are scattered across the country — one’s based in the North Island, with a couple in Tekapo, Twizel and Alexandra — their first almost-full team training was last Thursday night.
‘‘The first 10 minutes [on Friday] were a bit shaky, but after that, everybody gelled well together,’’ McIntosh says.
‘‘We definitely controlled the play both games, just on Saturday, we couldn’t put more than one behind the goalie, so that was the downfall.’’
The women’s league is being played as a series this year, the same format as the men’s league, rather than round-robin weekends, where the women were made to play three games in just over 24 hours.
Not only was that taxing on players’ bodies, but it’s also a format only the under-8s and women had to do, he says.
‘‘They would never force Stampede to do it, and I told them the first year we had the AGM after the league, if you tried to tell Stampede that we were playing Friday night at 5pm, Saturday morning at 8am and Saturday evening at 5pm, none of us would play.
‘‘It doesn’t make sense.’’
He’s also pleased to see the league move around different centres, instead of only being played in Dunedin.
The Wild’s next hit-out will be away, against Auckland Steel, on September 3 and 4 — McIntosh says they’re the ones to watch at the moment, having beaten Dunedin Thunder in both games this past weekend.
‘‘In my mind, if we can win both those games in Auckland, then I think we have a good chance of coming first [overall].’’
Meanwhile, SkyCity Stampede also had one of each away against the West Auckland Admirals last weekend.
After losing 2-1 on Saturday, Stampede had a hard-fought 3-1 win on Sunday, with goals scored by Jaden Skipper, Max Macharg and Mitchell Frear.
They’re at home against the Canterbury Red Devils at the Queenstown Ice Arena tonight and tomorrow — puck drop both nights is 6.45pm.
