As the sport grew in the UK in the 1990s, Huskies had various players called up to the Great Britain squad.<\/p>\n
Current Huskies coach Andy Brown said: “We’ve had quite a few talented male athletes with us who have played for GB such as Andy McNulty, Llyr Gwyndaf, Tim James, Matt Broadbent, Stephen Thomas and Nathan Stephens.”<\/p>\n
Stephens and Thomas first became Paralympians when they represented GB at the 2006 Turin Winter Paralympics. They both went on to achieve the distinction of being summer Paralympians as well.<\/p>\n
Stephens represented GB in track and field in the men’s F57 javelin at the 2008 and 2012 Paralympic Games.<\/p>\n
For a while Stephens was the best in his event, winning gold at the 2011 Paralympic World Championships and later the same year he broke the world record.<\/p>\n
Thomas went on to become a three-time world champion in Para-sailing and raced for GB at three consecutive Paralympic Games.<\/p>\n
Huskies were a mixed outfit from the very earliest of days and have seen a number of women pull on a GB vest for the mixed team.<\/p>\n
They have also been a leading club for providing women for GB with five players \u2013 Shannon Couch, Leanne Emmerson, Jodie Hill, Helen McGivern and Dani Czernuszka-Watts \u2013 selected for the inaugural Women’s World Championships held in August 2025.<\/p>\n
In the three decades since that post-match pint, Cardiff Huskies have undeniably changed some people’s lives.<\/p>\n
Huskies head coach Andy Brown said: “I started as a player and with my disability [muscular dystrophy] I was very weak and was barely able to skate, but by being resilient and coming every week I grew and grew, and then I was able to have enough strength to play in a game.<\/p>\n
“Some people who are newly disabled, we can be amongst the first people that they meet with something similar; for them it’s, ‘Oh, there are some people like me’.”<\/p>\n
Current Huskies forward Josh Davies explained how he came to take up Para-ice hockey, saying: “I had my 20th birthday in hospital. On 7 February 2011 I was felling a tree on our family trout farm, and the tree fell on me and broke my back, so no feeling from the waist down. It was hard to get over, but you’ve got to keep going.<\/p>\n
“My dad is Canadian, so I’ve always been passionate about hockey. He coached his own street hockey team, and I played for them from the age of eight, so I’ve always followed the Cardiff Devils and the Toronto Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n
“It was a good 10 years before I started feeling like I wanted to get out and play sport, it took me a long time to gain the confidence.<\/p>\n
“I found Cardiff Huskies one day on Facebook and jumped at the chance to give it a go, and after the first session I fell in love with it straightaway.<\/p>\n
“It was hard to begin with using muscles I didn’t know I had. It took a while to get my balance, but I’m getting somewhere now.<\/p>\n
“Once you’ve got the right set-up on your sled you’re away, it just clicks.<\/p>\n
“It’s as brutal as stand-up hockey, fast-paced, a lot of strategy in it. You’ve got to keep your head up all the time because there are big hits coming in from anywhere. I love the big hits, I thrive off them.<\/p>\n
“It gave me loads of confidence, my fitness and mental health improved, and I met a load of good friends.<\/p>\n
“I’ve played in one World Championships; I’m hoping one day to reach the Paralympics.”<\/p>\n
Brown added: “It’s about growing people. When they come sometimes, they can be insecure, but they just develop in confidence and strength. It’s just brilliant.<\/p>\n
“I’m so proud of the team, just good people, amazing people.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the sport grew in the UK in the 1990s, Huskies had various players called up to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-602067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}