The New Zealand Champions Cup ice hockey game took place on Saturday 17th April in Dunedin, which saw players from the NZ U18 Men’s, NZ U20 Men’s and NZ Senior Men’s (Ice Blacks) national teams compete in a unique 4-period ice hockey game, split across Team White and Team Black.
Game one, featuring the first two periods of the night, saw the NZ U18 Men (Team White) face off against the NZ U20 Men (Team Black) in what was a hard fought and extremely close 40 minutes of ice hockey. Gregory (assisted by Robbie) scored the only goal of the matchup, giving Team Black the lead 1:0 with 6:53 to go in the first period.
The final two periods of the night would see the Ice Blacks split in to two teams, Team White and Team Black, continuing the score line of the previous matchup between the NZ U18 and NZ U20 men’s teams.
The first goal of the matchup was scored in the first 30 seconds, extending Team Black’s score to 2:0. This was followed by Ratcliffe (assisted by Heyd) at 29:17 on powerplay and then Ratcliffe (assisted by Heyd again) at 34:14, bringing the score to an even 2:2. Shortly before the end of the period however, Team Black added one more to their tally, scored by Amston (assisted by Challis) to bring the score to 3:2 in favour of Team Black.
In the fourth and final period of play, fans were treated to another scoring spectacle, with an unassisted goal by Orr at 43:08, followed by Schneider (assisted by Apps & Challis) at 43:37, increasing their lead to 5:2. Schneider then added to his tally again, completing his hattrick (assisted by Devlin & Challis), which was followed soon after by Heyd (assisted by Ratcliffe) of Team White at 52:47.
Final score for the evening’s action was 6:3 in favour of Team Black.
NZIHF President Andy Mills said that the Triple Star programme of which the New Zealand Champions Cup was a part of, was a fantastic opportunity for New Zealand’s national players to be back on ice training together, and that feedback had been extremely positive from the players and coaching staff.
View the full game data here: http://stats.iihf.com/NZIHF/110/index.html
Photos courtesy of James Allan Photography // @jamesallanphotography // www.jamesallan.co.nz
