Medal hopes boosted as GB thrash Estonia

A 4-1 defeat of Poland by Ukraine later in the day saw Paul Thompson’s team remain in a strong position to challenge group leaders Kazakhstan for gold in Division 1B, although they will need other results to go their way to stand any chance of eclipsing their East European rivals for first place.

A seven-goal blitz in the first period effectively killed off Estonia’s chances on Wednesday afternoon with Phil Hill’s fourth-minute power play strike opening the floodgates.

Sheffield Steelers’ forward Ashley Tait then profited from some good work by former club team-mate Robert Dowd to make it 2-0 at 4.59.

David Longstaff grabbed his second of the competition at 8.19 before Steelers’ captain Jonathan Phillips added a fourth 26 seconds later following good build-up play from Jeff Hutchins and Ben O’Connor.

Nottingham Panthers’ marksman David Clarke made it 5-0 at 10.41 and it was left to defenceman O’Connor, at 18.17, and Dowd, on the power play with 18 seconds of the period remaining, to complete the rout.

With all three points in the bag, it was not surprising to see GB ease up in the last two periods, with second-choice netminder Nathan Craze replacing Belfast Giants team-mate Stephen Murphy for the last 13 minutes to secure the deserved shutout.

“That was a thoroughly deserved victory,” said Thompson afterwards. “It was a fantastic first period with very smart second and third periods as well.

“You couldn’t really say a bad thing, the guys played very well, were very disciplined and totally clinical - especially in the opening period.”

Defenceman Russ Cowley and forward Colin Shields are listed as doubtful for Thursday’s game against Lithuania (11.30am) after picking up knocks on Wednesday.

Assistant-coach, Rob Wilson, said: “Both Russ and Colin have knocks to their upper-body. Both are tough boys and I’m sure if they can walk and carry a stick they will want to play

“If they can’t, then I’m sure others will up their workload and cover.”

After seeing Kazakhstan defeat Lithuania by the same 7-0 scoreline earlier in the day, Britain will be expecting to pick up their third win of the tournament against a team ranked one place below them in the IIHF world rankings.

Thompson’s team will finish their schedule against Poland on Saturday (2pm) - the same opponents they have faced in the last two years in their final game.