Sport.telegraph
Friday 4 March 2005

Top stars could skate for Ireland

By Simon Crosse
(Filed: 04/03/2005)

Ireland take part in the World Championship next week knowing that some of
the biggest stars in the world could end up skating for the lowly-ranked
nation in the future.

Detroit Red Wings forward Brendan Shanahan has declared his interest in
managing the team in the future, hoping to recruit some of his fellow
National Hockey League players with Irish heritage to the squad.

Shanahan, whose mother is from Belfast and father from Dunmanus, said: “In
past tournaments I have played for Canada and I’ve seen countries such as
Italy and Great Britain and they’re all using North Americans, so why not
Ireland? I’d definitely like to get involved after I quit playing in the
NHL.”

The present members of the Ireland team have virtually no professional
experience and are ranked 44th out of 45 nations.

They have the chance to improve on that next week, when they compete in the
World Championship Division Three tournament in Mexico. The newly formed
team, made up of equal numbers of players from Northern Ireland and the
Republic, open their series against Armenia on Monday.

Meanwhile, Great Britain’s women beat Hungary 5-0 in their opening World
Championship game in Cape Town. Great Britain move on to face Belgium later
today before playing Slovenia, Australia and the hosts, South Africa.