Great Britain’s U20 team face their fourth opponent of the week tonight as they go against Italy at Jegpalota, Budapest.
GB have two points from their three games, just ahead of Italy who have a single point from an OT loss to Ukraine. The Italians came from from Division 1A last year and are top seeds in this tournament but with a virtually new squad they have struggled and were beaten 7-0 by Slovenia yesterday.
The Lions will look to continue the level of play from the loss to Poland where Martin Grubb’s side battled and fought for 65 minutes with blocked shots galore and smart, physical play.
“Last night the players showed great character and we need to take that 60 plus minutes of effort into the game against the Italians,” said Martin Grubb.
“If we bring the same intensity and spirit, we pressure them and go to the net and do all the good things we did against Poland then I’d like to think we’ll be in the game and have too much for Italy.
“It’s going to be a tough battle with both sides at the bottom end of the standings but we’re solely focused on maintaining the improvements we’ve shown from game to game and go in rightly with a lot of confidence.”
Tonight’s game faces off at 8pm local time, 7pm UK and is available to watch online at www.sportstream.hu. Twitter updates will be available via the TeamGBicehockey account.
Photo credit: Duncan Speirs