A weekend of exciting international ice hockey at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena ended in heartbreak for Great Britain as they failed to progress to the next stage of qualifying for the 2022 Winter Olympics, losing their winner-takes-all game against Hungary on Sunday afternoon.

Team GB and Hungary were joined by Romania and Estonia in Group J of the pre-qualification round three with only the top ranked team making it through to the final stage of qualification.

Hungary triumphed in the opening game of the competition, beating Estonia 4-1 on Thursday afternoon. Janos Hari’s hat-trick helping Hungary to a comfortable win.

It was then Great Britain’s turn to respond and they edged past Romania 4-3 in front of over 2700. Coach Pete Russell’s men fell behind in the opening period but ended the opening twenty ahead thanks to Dallas Ehrhardt and Robert Farmer. The visitors levelled the score in the second period before two goals in 30 seconds, from Matthew Myers and Brendan Connolly, put Team GB in control. Romania halved the deficit with just over three minutes left on the clock, but the hosts stood firm to secure the opening day win.

Friday saw a day off before action returned on Saturday with Hungary taking on Romania. It proved to be an extremely tight affair with the team’s level at 2-2 after three periods. That took the game to Over Time but the deadlock didn’t last long as Csanad Erdely scored on 60:15 to give the Hungarians the win.

Thankfully for Team GB their game with Estonia was a much easier contest as they triumphed 7-1. It was a goalless opening period but the floodgates opened in the second. Ollie Betteridge and Scott Conway scored their first goals for their country whilst Brett Perlini found the net twice. Estonia managed to get a goal back before the end of the second period but they had no answer to three GB goals in the final twenty minutes. Ben Lake made it 5-1 before captain Jonathan Phillips added the sixth. Conway then rounded off the scoring his second with only a few minutes left.

That set up Sunday’s big clash with Hungary but first it was the turn of Romania and Estonia to lock horns to decide who would finish third in the group. In the end it was Estonia who were left propping the other three teams up as they were defeated 7-3, the Romanians taking control in the final two periods after a closely fought opening twenty.

Attention then turned to the big game and with over 4500 in the house, it was a fantastic atmosphere with the vociferous Hungarian support making plenty of noise despite being outnumbered. You could sense the importance of the occasion in the tense opening twenty minutes with neither side being able to find the net, Team GB having several good chances. The Hungarians got the opener 32 seconds into the second period and after 31:17, it was 2-0. Great Britain knew they’d need a big final period to secure the win and they made the perfect start, Matthew Myers scoring a powerplay goal after just 57 seconds. That was ultimately as good as it got for GB however as Hari made it 3-1 before Istvan Sofron finished on the counter-attack after Davey Phillips had seen an effort cleared off the goal line.

Hungary now travel to Latvia for the next stage of the qualification as they aim to make it to Beijing in 2022. Team GB’s long wait for Olympic qualification, stretching back to 1948, goes on but they will be proud of their efforts in Nottingham over a fine weekend of international action.

*Article provided by Liam Kent (Ice Hockey Correspondent).

*Main image @LiamKFootball team GB lineup alongside the Hungarian National Ice Hockey team.