Ice Hockey: Britain suffer humiliation

THE LAST time Great Britain played Italy they lost 12-0 in 1979, and it looked, in last night's World Championship Pool A match, like we would have the same score as the Italians led 4-0 by the end of the first period, writes Simon Crosse from Bolzano, Italy.

Britain's defence, struggled badly against the pace of the home team and despite goals by Patrick Scott and Doug McEwan, this was by far their worst performance of the tournament so far, going down 10-2.

'We are fighting an uphill battle,' the British forward, Tim Cranston, said. 'We are taking on teams who've had a three or four-week break in an Alpine training camp to get ready. We were up at 5am the day after our season's final and playing Russia the next day.'

Britain's toughest task still lies ahead: a match against Canada on Saturday night. Only one of the Canadian side has not played in the National Hockey League and Paul Kariyea is already being labelled the Wayne Gretzky of college ice hockey.