Holly Skates Her Way Into GB Senior Squad

GRIMSBY ice hockey player Holly Cornford has been called up to the Great Britain senior team for an international against France on December 23.

It is the culmination of an excellent year for the 17-year-old.

Cornford, a sixth-form student at Tollbar Business and Enterprise College, made a terrific impression on the national selectors when she captained the England Under-16 team last year and was invited to train with both the England and GB senior teams a few days after her 16th birthday.

The Grimsby Under-18 Redwings player also captains the Kingston Diamonds women's Premier League ice hockey team, which makes her the youngest senior ice hockey team captain in the country.

Having outgrown the captaincy of the England Under-16 squad and having played in every GB Under-18 fixture in the last two years, she was appointed assistant England seniors captain for their recent tournament in Canada.

Ice hockey teams have one captain and two assistant captains to ensure there is always a captain on the ice when players rotate their playing shifts during a game.

She was also selected as a reserve for the 2009 World Championships last Easter, when the GB squad narrowly missed out on promotion to World Division One.

France are an enviably capable team who, like Great Britain, are trying to make the final jump to the world top eight ranking to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Cornford said: "It's a terrific honour and I'm really looking forward to playing in France.

"But I know from experience getting, and then keeping, a full-time place in the Great Britain squad is far from easy.

"I feel genuinely humbled to be playing in France and, although I've put a great deal of time and effort into ice hockey, I couldn't have achieved this without the help and support from all my coaches, especially the coaching team at Grimsby."

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Grimsby ice rink, the club's junior players have enjoyed unprecedented success over the last six months with three other players still attending trials for the English Northern conference.

Grimsby Ice Hockey Club chairman Ian Watson said: "I have every faith that NELC will continue to support ice hockey in Grimsby, because it would be a crying shame if our increasingly successful player development programme was rewarded with the loss of our local facility.

"If anybody fancies trying the sport, Grimsby Ice Hockey Club provides coaching sessions for all abilities."

Article from The Grimsby Telegraph - Tuesday 17th November 2009