Newcastle Wildcats

Newcastle Wildcats
League	British Universities Ice Hockey Association Northern Section
Founded	1994
Home Arena	Whitley Bay Ice Rink
Team Colours	Blue, Red, White
President	Ben Craighead
Head Coach	Peter Winn
Captain	Mike Hall
Honours	pre-BUIHA National Championships 2001, 2002 BUIHA era Division 2 Champions (North) 2004 Division 1 Champions (North) 2010

The Newcastle Wildcats are a university ice hockey team representing Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. The Wildcats are a member club of the British Universities Ice Hockey Association and ice three teams across all three tiers of UK university competition. The club is notable for being one of the oldest amongst modern British university ice hockey programmes, having been founded in 1994.

The Wildcats have a storied history, claiming the first two university National Championships in 2001 and 2002. They have been less successful, however, in the BUIHA era of British university hockey. After winning the Division Two (North) title in 2004, a long trophy drought was ended by a rampant first team, who won the Division One (North) title for the 2009/10 season and advanced to the national playoff finals.

The Wildcats operate a successful beginners' training programme to develop new players. Partially as a result of this, Newcastle University has been the most represented institution in terms of player registration within the BUIHA for the past three seasons with the Wildcats preferring to ice teams consisting almost totally of Newcastle students and mostly shunning the popular practice of pooling players from the maximum possible number of institutions. Since their inception, the Wildcats have been based at Whitley Bay Ice Rink, alongside the semi-professional Whitley Warriors, rivals Northumbria Flames and more recently the Newcastle Vipers of the Elite Ice Hockey League.

History

Beginnings

The Newcastle Wildcats were officially formed in 1994 by Ian Pitcher, having existed as a loose collection of Newcastle University students in previous years. The newly-created Wildcats would play out of Whitley Bay Ice Rink, situated on the coast just outside the city centre and represented the city of Newcastle upon Tyne as a whole by pooling players from both Newcastle University and the newly-incorporated Northumbria University. This collaboration was the reason for the choice of the neutral Wildcats name, as opposed to Royals, which is the traditional nickname used by Newcastle University's sports teams. Throughout their early existence, the club iced only one team almost exclusively in challenge games against recreational ice hockey sides in the North East, rather than other higher education institutions.

This partnership lasted until 2001, when Northumbria University students formed a new side to call their own, the Flames. This was the same year of the first National Championships contested by British university sides, which was won by the Wildcats in their final appearance as a dual-university club. The success of this inaugural university tournament led to its repeat the following year, and it was again claimed by now single-institution Wildcats. With the National Championships a huge success and a growing number of institutions expressing interest in entering teams into competition, the Wildcats became a founding member of the British Universities Ice Hockey Association upon its formation the following year in 2003.

With the creation of the BUIHA and with it properly organised divisions and regular competition against other universities, not least local rivals Northumbria, the level of interest swelled and the Wildcats launched a new team, the 'B' team, in 2004 to ice in the new third tier of university competition. The first team exceeded expectations this academic year of competition, claiming the top spot in Division Two's northern section to take the number of trophies lifted by the Wildcats to three in four years.

Two years later, another groundswell of interest in university ice hockey - particularly from students with little previous experience - led the club to set up a beginners' training programme and enter a development team, named the 'C' team, into the new third tier of BUIHA competition. With the aim of training and developing new players, the club continues to produce players who are able to compete at intermediate level competition with the 'B' team as little as twelve months after beginning to skate.

Recent history (2008/09 season)

In Division One, the Wildcats' first team began the season with big hopes of improving on the previous year following a strong intake of players. The Division One squad, captained by Marcus Hinkley - who also captained the Newcastle Vipers' English National League side - was bolstered by defencemen Janek Podhajecki and Stuart Tomlinson, both products of the Whitley Bay junior development programme along with Sheffield-born goaltender Chris Clapham. The Wildcats were also able to secure the services of Northumbria University students Matt Hinkley - brother of captain Marcus - and James Udell due to the Flames' lack of a Division One entry.

A slick opening day crushing of the Edinburgh Eagles raised hopes further, but the first team had constant problems icing a full strength side due to relying on so many players with ENL commitments, with away games against the Nottingham Mavericks and Edinburgh being played effectively by the 'B' team and subsequently lost despite valiant stand-in efforts. This caused the team to slip down the league rankings around the middle of the season. To compound their misery, the team also lost out to Northumbria's all-conquering Division Two side in the annual Stan Calvert Cup clash at the Metro Radio Arena in February. Towards the end of the year, despite the league title being out of their grasp, with the ENL season finished the team was able to ice at full strength again, beating eventual champions Nottingham at Whitley Bay and stunning the Sheffield Bears at IceSheffield. The team was agonisingly denied a place in the end-of-season playoffs by a Sheffield upset in Nottingham.

In Division Two, the season started with similar optimism. Talented forwards Martin Fletcher and Chris Payne had been added to the line-up and two successful products of the clubs' beginner programme, Chris Homans and Hamish Latchem, had been moved into the side. The season did not start so well as had been imagined, however, with defeats in Hull and at home against a strong Bradford Sabres side. Like all teams in the Northern section, the side also took two heavy beatings from a Northumbria side that would not have looked out of place a division higher. Towards the end of the season, however, results picked up and a win against Northumbria's second string was followed up by a 23-2 demolition of a Hull side that simply failed to travel.

Division Three saw record numbers of players training with the club, and the decision was taken by the club committee to enter two teams into the third tier for the first time in the history of the Wildcats. The sides were dubbed 'Blue' and 'White' after the main colours of the Newcastle uniform. The 'Blue' side took on the more experienced players - including new goaltender Scott Renfrey - and finished as league runners-up in the north. The 'White' team took the place of the traditional 'C' team as the development squad and iced an inexperienced side made up mostly of first-time hockey players. The 'White' team failed to win a game but succeeded in developing several players with Steven Boyle and Matthew Hinsley moving to Division Two and Joy Craighead - sister of the 'A' team's Ben - being named alternate captain of a more experienced Division Three line-up for 2009/10.

Team rosters 2009/10 season

Division One

#	Nat	Uni		S/G	Place of birth
			Theo Abban	L	London, United Kingdom
77			Jean-Christophe Andre (A)	L	Montréal, Canada
			Joe Bateman	R	United Kingdom
			Matas Belevicius	L	Lithuania
11			Harry Bennett	R	Blackburn, United Kingdom
30			Chris Clapham (NM)	L	Sheffield, United Kingdom
9			Kevin Corcoran	L	Toronto, Canada
50			Ben Craighead	R	Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
			Martin Davies	R	Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
20			James Hadfield (C)	R	Blackburn, United Kingdom
24			Mike Hall	L	Kalamazoo, MI, United States
95			Jonathan Hughes	R	Durham, United Kingdom
6			Thaddeus Jackson-Browne	R	London, United Kingdom
			Paul Litchfield	R	Sunderland, United Kingdom
90			Fredrik Nyman	L	Luleå, Sweden
			Justin Orenstein	L	United States
87			Janek Podhajecki	R	Washington, United Kingdom
8			Joe Royle	R	North Shields, United Kingdom
75			Bradley Sullivan	R	Redhill, United Kingdom
71			Stuart Tomlinson (A)	R	Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

Division Two

#	Nat	Uni		S/G	Place of birth
8			Steven Boyle	R	Durham, United Kingdom
10			Daniel Davison	R	Durham, United Kingdom
17			Robert Dziurla (A)	R	Leeds, United Kingdom
93			Martin Fletcher	L	Scarborough, United Kingdom
12			Michelle Gamble	L	Toronto, Canada
32			Matthew Hinsley	R	Sheffield, United Kingdom
33			Hugo Jackson (C)	R	London, United Kingdom
57			Hamish Latchem (A)	R	Glossop, United Kingdom.
70			Severin Luebke	R	Zurich, Switzerland
			Liam Mainstone	R	Colchester, United Kingdom
48			Alexandra Maxwell	R	Chester, United Kingdom
96			Jeremy Mok	R	London, United Kingdom
44			Samuel Pay	R	Durham, United Kingdom
15			Chris Payne	R	Clitheroe, United Kingdom
24			Mark Peacock	R	Stanley, United Kingdom
29			Scott Renfrey (NM)	L	Rochdale, United Kingdom

Division Three

#	Nat	Uni		S/G	Place of birth
13			Daniel Abbott	R	Jarrow, United Kingdom
60			Luke Barnwell	R	Birmingham, United Kingdom
72			Michael Brandler	R	London, United Kingdom
26			Edward Brooks	R	Isfield, United Kingdom
51			Kris Chay	R	Reigate, United Kingdom
22			Andy Coates	R	Chester, United Kingdom
44			Joy "sexy" Craighead (A)	R	Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
40			Sophie Doe	R	United Kingdom
7			Matt Downie	R	Carlisle, United Kingdom
52			Nick Evensen	R	Monte Carlo, Monaco
19			Chris Eyeington	R	Durham, United Kingdom
18			Laura Kerr	R	Edinburgh, United Kingdom
79			David Lines (C)	R	London, United Kingdom
2			Emily Powell	R	Cambridge, United Kingdom
39			Tim Rickard (NM)	L	London, United Kingdom
11			Iain Riddell	R	United Kingdom
34			Luke Sandler	R	Bakewell, United Kingdom
5			Owen Symmonds	R	Beverley, United Kingdom
55			Christopher Taylor (A)	R	United Kingdom
			David Vanneck	R	United Kingdom
45			Jack Williamson	R	Long Sutton, United Kingdom

Notable former players

Retired jerseys

#	Nat		Ret	Achievements
42		Ian "Bruises" Pitcher	2002	Founder of the Newcastle Wildcats - in 2000 the NUIHC Committee made Ian the Club's Honourary President for Life
23		Andrew "Millgod" Miller	2009	Member of the club for nine years, sitting on the committee for three (including one year as club president). Now BUIHA chairman.
14		Mike "Grapes" Brett	2010	Member of the club for eight years, sitting on the committee for three. Alumni jersey retired in recognition of the work put in to setting up the Wildcats Alumni section

Other notable players

Nat		Active	Notable for
	Joel Holtzem	2004-05	Played professionally in the German leagues, still represents Luxembourg internationally.
	Tuomo Hirovenen	2006	Won IIHF Junior World Championships with Finland.
	Robert Grant	2004-2007	Secretary of the British Univeristies Ice Hockey Association.
	Marcus Hinkley	2006-09	First team captain for three years, also captained Newcastle ENL Vipers and represented Great Britain Universities. Now coaches the Wildcats 'B' team.

Sources

• British Universities Ice Hockey Association
• Newcastle Wildcats
• Newcastle University
• Newcastle University Union Society

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