GB faced with final day survival bid

A 5-0 defeat at the hands of an impressive Japan team in Ljubljana on Thursday means Tony Hand’s team go into Saturday’s final-day game with Hungary knowing a win will see guarantee their Division 1A status.

A medal was always going to be a tough prospect for Britain given the restructuring of the lower divisions last year by the IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation).

Although a little earlier than widely expected, Austria and hosts Slovenia secured an instant return to the top tier on Thursday, while Britain will enter the weekend in a duel with bottom team Ukraine – who they beat 4-3 in overtime on Wednesday – to avoid finishing bottom and endure the relegation that will accompany it.

Japan had caused a shock by beating gold medal favourites 4-3 Austria after a shoot-out on Wednesday and, not surprisingly, carried their confidence over into the game with Britain.

Despite out-shooting their opponents 14-4, Britain went in 2-0 down at the first break after two goals from Hiroki Ueno.

It got worse in the middle stanza when Makoto Kawashima (31.34) and Shinya Yanadori (33.48) added further goals before Kohei Mitamura netted a fifth at 48.50.

A 7-2 win over Hungary for Austria - a surprising margin of victory given the former’s promising start - was enough to see the top seeds guarantee their return to the elite division with a game to spare.

They will face Slovenia on Saturday evening with the gold medal still up for grabs. It was the hosts who finished the fourth round of games in top spot, following a 3-2 win over Ukraine which in turn boosted GB’s survival hopes, ensuring they hold a one-point advantage over the former Soviet republic going into the weekend.

Another advantage for the British team will be the fact that Ukraine play first on Saturday, coming up against a Japan team no doubt keen on keeping themselves in contention for a bronze medal, currently lying one point behind third-placed Hungary.

Hand, presiding over his first international tournament as head coach, said his team would not worry about results elsewhere and just concentrate on finishing their campaign in positive style in a game which will see recently-signed Sheffield Steelers’ forward Colin Shields win his 50th cap.

“We can’t focus on other teams and their results now,” said Hand. “All we can do is focus on beating Hungary in our last game.

“Against Japan, we were simply beaten by the better team. They were clinical in front of the net and they were fast - the fastest team I’ve seen in this tournament this week.

“Beating Austria the day before put them on such a high and you could see that when they came out against us. It was a tough game and, to be honest, we weren’t at our best.”