By Craig Anderson
Great Britain defenceman Zach Sullivan admits he was shocked to be included in Pete Russell’s squad for this week’s World Championship – now he wants to impress.
The Braehead Clan stalwart is set for his first crack at senior international level in Budapest for the Division 1 Group A campaign, which starts this weekend.
GB fly out today to Hungary ahead of Sunday’s first game against Slovenia.
And he’s viewing it as a great development opportunity as he prepares to line up with players he normally comes up against in the Elite League.
“Playing for my country is something I’ve always wanted to do in hockey and I’ve been lucky enough to be selected,” he said.
“We had post-games meetings after the game on Sunday and were called into the office one by one. My initial reaction was shock and took a while to settle in.
“I’m over the moon to get the chance to play with these guys, so my aim is to impress the coaches and as a team, hope we can do well in the World Championship.
“Every d-man in this team I have a huge amount of respect for and I enjoy watching them whenever I come up against them.
“I’m learning a little off them all the time so this gives me an opportunity to pick their brains and I hope to use it to make myself better.
“I played on Sunday against Lithuania, where we unfortunately lost, but it was good fun testing myself against some good players and it was a good experience.
“All we can do is take the positives, learn from the negatives and hope we can become the team we want to be by the time we arrive in Budapest.”