Hockey team to enter North district league
SHETLAND women’s hockey team are set to enter a North district league for the first time.
The blues will forego the Scottish District Cup this year, having won the competition twice in three years and reached the final on the other occasion.
Instead they will join Scottish Hockey’s district league for the North, allowing them to test themselves against sides from Aberdeen and the Highlands.
Starting in early September, Shetland will play all of their games on the Scottish mainland.
They will play two fixtures over the course of a weekend, one on a Saturday and one on a Sunday, in order to reduce the amount of travelling they will have to do.
Shetland coach Derek Leask said the league will be a “big step up” for his team.
“We’ll play 16 games, so we’ll have eight trips away during the season,” he told Shetland News.
“The league will be a tremendous bonus – that’s where we’ll learn and that’s where we’ll improve.”
He was talking ahead of Saturday’s annual inter-county fixture against Orkney in Kirkwall, with Shetland boasting two wins in the last three years of the match.
And Leask said he believed taking part in the district league would make them an “even stronger squad for next year”.
Shetland lifted their maiden mainland hockey title with a penalty flicks victory over Edinburgh University 4’s in the Scottish District Cup final in 2023, before losing to the same opponents 1-0 in the 2024 final.
However they lifted the trophy again last year, beating Edinburgh Hockey 2’s – again on penalty flicks.
Shetland News will preview the inter-county hockey and football matches on Friday.
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