South Canterbury’s newest golden girls shone on the world stage as the New Zealand under-18 women’s ice hockey team made history in Bulgaria last month.
Taking part in the division two, group B world championships in Sofia, the Kiwis went all the way, winning the gold medal in dramatic fashion with a lastminute goal by Mackenzie College pupil Jessica Ryall.
The team was captained by fellow Mackenzie College pupil Gracie Hellmrich, with Craighead pupils Camryn Linton and Izzy Power also playing an important part in the team’s success.
It was only the third time New Zealand had made an appearance at a world under-18 championship.
Hellmrich, who plays her ice hockey in the national women’s league for Queenstown, said the team had no real expectations going into the tournament.
‘‘Honestly, I was a bit nervous for the whole thing because we have a very new and young team.
‘‘Our whole team was pretty much brand new last year and we finished fourth that year, so we didn’t really know what to expect this time around.
‘‘We just ended up gelling really well as a team on and off the ice and ended up being able to win a gold medal.’’
The team would win their first three games in ruthless fashion with an aggregate score of 27-1.
She said the feeling that the team could do something special slowly grew game by game.
‘‘We won our first game against a team that had come down from the division above. They were expected to win the whole thing and we beat them first game.
‘‘Those first three games were incredible, we were pretty amazed with what we’d done.’’
A 5-2 loss to Belgium in their fourth was a bit of a wakeup call, Hellmrich said.
‘‘Losing the fourth was a bit gutting, but I think we probably needed that to realise how much it meant to us.’’
The final game took place on January 15 with the Kiwis going up against the host nation Bulgaria. They went into the game knowing they needed a win in regulation time in order claim the gold.
Hellmrich described the match as ‘‘pretty intense’’.
‘‘It was such a painful game — it was just one of those things where you just wanted it to be over already.
‘‘We really wanted to win. It was so important to us being such a small country up against all these huge countries that everyone expects to be amazing and we were the underdogs.’’
With the scores tied at 3-3 and the clock counting down, the Bulgarian team gave away two penalties leaving New Zealand with a five-on-three player advantage going into the final minutes.
With 1 minute and 34 seconds left on the clock, Jessica Ryall guided home a team-mate’s shot and the rest was history.
Recalling the moment, Ryall said there was not much time to celebrate.
‘‘I was just kind of standing in front of the net and redirected the puck and it just dribbled over the line.
‘‘It felt amazing but I knew we still had to hold out the Bulgarian team for another minute so I quickly turned to being nervous.
‘‘When we finally won I was so overjoyed, I can’t even describe how I felt once the timer went off.
‘‘Some people thought the goal had actually come off a defender, but in the changing room after the game, our manager went to check if it was actually me and it was, and then all the girls were jumping around me and congratulating me, it was awesome.’’
Hellmrich said she could not believe what the team had achieved together.
‘‘I can’t even put it into words, it was so amazing.
‘‘To see all the girls come together and realise what we’d done was just incredible.
‘‘I’m just so proud of all the girls that were in my team. We’re so used to playing against each other so to join together and achieve what we did is pretty surreal.’’
Hellmrich hoped the win would do a lot for the sport back home.
‘‘I hope the win will bring a bit more attention to ice hockey in New Zealand, it’s definitely growing. We just need more people to play it.
‘‘If we had more, the costs wouldn’t be too high to do what we do. There’s not really any subsidies or anything to get over there, we all had to pay it ourselves.’’
Now aged out of the under-18 group, Hellmrich hopes to continue helping to build up the women’s league and has set her sights on playing for the Ice Fernz.
