Ice hockey: Medal joy for Angela

May 5 2009 by Paul Behan, Paisley Daily Express

ICE hockey queen Angela Taylor has added to her impressive list of achievements by helping the Great Britain Womens team claim a bronze medal during their first year in the Division Two World Championship group.

Angela, 22, who plays for the University of New Hampshire Wildcats team in the US, made the trip to Italy for this year’s world championship event and captained the team to a highly creditable third place.

Forward Taylor started the tournament in tremendous fashion as she scored a hat-trick in Great Britain’s opening game against hosts Italy, a game GB won 5-3.

In game two Taylor also scored in her team’s 2-0 win over the much-fancied Netherlands at Torre Pellice Ice Rink.

The talented Angela, who is a former pupil of St Paul’s Primary and St Andrew’s Academy, continued her goalscoring exploits by finding the net twice in GB’s next game, a 3-1 win over Denmark.

Next on the hit-list was Latvia in a gold medal game for whoever came out on top but this time the Brits slumped to a 3-0 defeat to the eventual champions.

And the possibility of the silver medal proved beyond team GB too, as they succumbed to a 4-1 defeat to Korea.

Great Britain coach Reggie Wilcox said afterwards: “I’d be disappointed if they came back into the dressing room smiling after a defeat, but now they can celebrate their achievement.

“Having said that it will take a few more days to get over being so close in the gold medal game.”

Angela, though, not only picked up a bronze medal for her efforts but she also picked up a top player award for her displays from the International Ice Hockey Federation directorate.

But her accolades did not stop there.

When she returned to the US, she was one of eight UNH students to receive honours at their annual awards banquet, held at Holloway Commons.

Senior forward Angela was called to the podium twice to accept the Unsung Hero Award and the Norma O’Dowd Hartnett Award for sportsmanship.

Earlier this year Angela helped her university’s Wildcats team to their fifth consecutive Hockey East League championship.

Impressively, Angela has been involved in each of the last four consecutive championship wins.

Paisley-born Angela has been living in the US since 2005 after she was hand-picked for a four-year scholarship at the university, where she netted a dream ticket to study and play ice hockey at the same time.