Great Britain Roster

1995

Please see Obituary below

Obituary

On 13th June, 1998, GB international Lee Saunders was tragically killed in Amsterdam.While on a cycling tour through the Dutch capital, he was hit by a tram and died instantly.

Originally from South Shields, Lee Saunders learnt to play ice hockey in Canada before returning to Britain. He enjoyed spells with the Lee Valley Lions, Basingstoke Beavers, Milton Keynes Kings, Guildford Flames and Peterborough Pirates. He also played in Europe with EC Graz in Austria and Sterzing in Vipiteno, Italy.

World Championships, Pool B – 1995 in Slovakia.

Venue – Bratislava.

The mistakes of the previous year had clearly not been learned as in 1995, the domestic play-off finals were played across the middle weekend of the World Championship campaign. This meant some players had the unenviable task of jetting back across Europe to fulfil club obligations before once more jumping straight onto a plane to lend a hand with Great Britain’s fight against Pool B relegation. All of this left new national team coach George Peternousek, formerly with the Durham Wasps, the task of juggling a squad around the comings and goings of those players concerned.

Against all the odds that beset them, Peternousek and his coaching team of Jim Lynch, mike Blaisdell and Chic Cottrell inspired their team to stave off the threat of relegation. Great Britain produced surprising like the win over Holland after having appeared to have blown their chances with defeat at the hands of Romania. Inspired by the likes of David Longstaff, who top scored with 6+1 from the seven games, this was a fighting rearguard battle all the way, with many of the squad performing above what could reasonably have been expected.

Great Britain eventually finished in seventh place in the eight-team pool, getting themselves off the hook and surviving to compete in Pool B for another year. The significance of this achievement was not lost on BIHA president Frederick Meredith who noted, “That (world) top twenty is becoming tougher all the time with the emergence of the Soviet Bloc nations. I think it will be more difficult over the course of the next two years, if not three, to get out of Pool C than to stay in Pool B.”