Ice Hockey
Team GB positive about the future
Team GB ice hockey coach Paul Thompson said that his team and GB ice hockey in general can take "nothing but positives" from its World Championship campaign in Austria.
Team GB arrived a week ago, and after an initial 2-1 shootout defeat to Poland and a 10-5 thrashing at the hands of Austria, they bounced back with a 4-1 victory over Korea and an 8-1 hammering of the Netherlands.
Spirits were running high ahead of Saturday's match against Kazakhstan, which could see GB bring home a Silver medal.
Sadly it was not to be, as GB suffered a 3-1 defeat, but it took until 54.42 for Kazakhstan to take the lead against Team GB, a team ranked 11 places below them in World Standings.
Up until then the British had stood firm led by goalie Stephen Murphy. The result sees Kazakhstan take Silver Medal with Britain finishing in fourth place in the group.
After the Kazakhstan game, GB head coach Paul Thompson said: "I couldn't have asked for any more. Every player gave me everything they had, they left nothing out there and I am proud of each and every one of them, in fact I thanked them all after the game for taking us on such a good journey this week.
"A bounce here and a bounce there and maybe that silver medal would have come home with us. We are down right now as the season is over and we come home without a medal.
"But we have progressed so much in the last 18 months and that will continue. We are getting better, the programme is getting better and we have the Olympic qualifiers coming up in February to look forward to.
"Every player should go home proud of their improvement and performances out here, we collected one more point than last year and have nothing but positives to take away with us."
Thompson had already praised the progress of his side after Friday's win against the Netherlands.
He said: "When you look back to twelve months ago, we had to face Romania in a group relegation game. "This year we have just won our seventh point which is one more than last year already.
"It doesn't matter how you look at it, this programme is going in the right direction and we certainly have progressed.
"This is my second World Championships as head coach and I think the players now understand me, my style of coaching and my demands.
"Ice Hockey UK should also take some credit for our upturn of results. Many other countries spend hundreds of thousands of Euros on their national team. I know Ice Hockey UK don't have that, but they found a way in February to send a GB team to France for the Euro Challenge, the first time we as a country had been away together mid-season for a long time.
"I can't emphasize enough how important that trip was. It was only three days away, but it was three more days away. Another chance for me to get my ways and systems through to the guys and three days for them to show me what they had in these type of competitions."
9:41pm Saturday 19th April 2008
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