Fife stars among Team GB ice hockey silver medal winners

GB’s final-day 5-2 victory over Serbia Under-20s, coupled with Japan U20s 5-2 win over Lithuania U20s meant the team claimed second place in Division II Group A at the tournament in Vilnius.

Among the squad were Kirkcaldy’s Reece Cochrane and Caly Robertson, both of whom play their hockey down south.

They were joined by Fife Flyers’ player Jordan Buesa.

In Team GB’s group Japan took home the gold medal and immediate promotion back to Division I, while Lithuania had to settle for third place and the bronze medal.

GB led 2-0 at the first intermission thanks to a neat finish from Sam Russell on the powerplay (14:23), while Ed Bradley cut inside from the right to fire past Bojan Vasiv (16:59).

Serbia drew level with a pair of powerplay goals through Marko Mladenovic (22:41) and Aleksa Gvozdenovic (34:29).

Third-period goals from Alex Graham (50:37), Finley Ulrick (56:53) and Cade Neilson from a feed behind the net (59:24) wrapped up GB’s fourth successive win.

Head coach, Martin Grubb, said: “I don’t think it was our best performance.

“ We started well but we got a little loose.

“Credit to Serbia for the way they came back, but we talked in the room at the end of the second period that good teams find a way to win.

“We wanted to play for the nation – for the people here and the people back home.

“We wanted to progress, four wins out of five is a progression, but we still want to be better

“It is still tinged with sadness that we underachieved as we weren’t going for a gold medal, but credit to the players as they have showed huge character throughout the tournament.”