Great Britain's ice hockey team still 'daring to dream' with 2026 Winter Olympics their intended end game

Over the next few months that is unlikely to change.

As expected, Russell’s players secured progression through to the final stage of qualifying for the 2026 Winter Olympics, beating Romania 7-4 at Cardiff’s Vindico Arena on Sunday, to round off a trio of performances that had already produced an 11-0 win over Serbia and a 10-1 thrashing of China.

It was impressive stuff from start to finish, particularly when you consider the team had only assembled fresh from turning out for their clubs the previous weekend.

After two practice sessions, they were up and running and straight into their first game but any concerns there may have been over lack of preparation time were comfortably dispelled.

Japan and Ukraine also won their respective groups over the weekend to join GB in keeping their Olympic hopes alive.

The three will now join nine other teams ranked ninth to 17th in the world rankings and be split into three groups of four at the end of August to compete for the three remaining spots for the Games that will be staged in Milano-Cortina in Italy in February 2026.

Bratislava in Slovakia, the Latvian capital of Riga and the Danish city of Aalborg are the three potential destinations for GB to try and pull off what would be another remarkable achievement were they to make it to Italy.

Regardless of where they are sent to - at 19th, they are the highest-ranked of the three teams who progressed at the weekend - a much tougher test awaits than the one they came through in South Wales.

Russell is aware of that but also conscious of the fact that he has a bunch of players who have repeatedly defied the odds, first in 2019 when they ended a 25-year wait to get back into the top tier, then by staying there for three years.

Their response to being relegated in 2022 was to bounce straight back up when winning the Division 1A tournament in Nottingham in May last year.

It was 1948 when GB last competed in ice hockey at the Olympics. Don’t bet against that long wait for a return being ended come 2026.

“It’s a huge carrot,” said Russell, looking ahead to the next challenge at the conclusion of the four-day tournament in Cardiff. “But we’re going to play some high-end competition.

“We need to see where we go. Nobody thought that we could ever be in Pool A, but we have been and so we’ve got to keep dreaming. We’ll go away, get to the end of this season and see what happens from there.”

For so long billed as the underdogs in global tournaments, Russell admitted he was pleased with the way his players – captained by Sheffield Steelers’ Robert Dowd – dealt with going into the qualifiers as firm favourites to progress.

“These are tough tournaments when they are in season because guys come straight from their teams,” added Russell, who is also head coach of Elite League outfit, Cardiff Devils. “We had two practices before we started but we still scored 28 goals this weekend, that is obviously a good thing.

“When everybody expects you to win it’s not easy and you don’t know what’s going to happen but we scored loads of goals and we’ll take that.

"But we just had to play the right way and we dominated games.”

Russell was pleased with the impact had by the four newcomers to the team, which included Sheffield Steelers’ forwards, Cole Shudra and Brandon Whistle who, along with Dowd and defenceman Sam Jones, saw the current EIHL title favourites well-represented on the national team once again.

Dowd was among the leading contributors for his team, his hat-trick in the win over Serbia helping him end the tournament with four goals and four assists.

His former Steelers’ team-mate Liam Kirk was joint-top points scorer in 10 along with Caee Neilson, both boasting three goals and seven assists.

Jones weighed in with two goals and two assists, while Shudra (1+1) and Whistle (1+0) also made their presence felt.

The absence of GB stalwarts Jonathan Phillips and Matthew Myers was noticeable when the team first came together, admitted Russell, although he was pleased with the way the gap was filled by this year’s leadership group, fronted by Dowd.

“The four new guys all played well,” said Russell. “I thought they made up a really good part of the team, especially that fourth line of (Ben) Davies, Shudra and Whistle – they were buzzing and always busy and then Sean Norris got a chance to play with (Cal) Critchlow and (Robert) Lachowicz and they all did great.

“Everybody fitted into the group really well. It was kind of weird at the start with no Jonno Phillips or Matthew Myers here, but I felt Robert Dowd and the assistants did a great job.

"They stepped up to the plate, were really good in the room and made sure everybody was ready every night.”