Newcastle Wildcats

This article is about the Newcastle Wildcats, the team name of the Newcastle University Ice Hockey Club (NUIHC).

The Newcastle Wildcats are a university ice hockey team representing Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. NUIHC are a member club of the British Universities Ice Hockey Association (BUIHA) and ice three teams across all three tiers of UK university competition. The club is listed as number 6481 at Eurohockey.com

The club is notable for now being the 3rd oldest amongst modern British university ice hockey programmes (having been founded in 1994) and for the fact that it was the first to introduce mixed gender participation in to a full-contact university sport.

The Wildcats operate a successful beginners' training programme to develop new players. Partially as a result of this, Newcastle University was the most represented institution in terms of player registration within the BUIHA for three seasons with the Wildcats preferring to ice teams consisting almost totally of Newcastle students and mostly shunning the popular practice of pooling players from the maximum possible number of institutions. Since their inception, the Wildcats have mainly been based at Whitley Bay Ice Rink, alongside the semi-professional Whitley Warriors, rivals Northumbria Flames and, at one time, the Newcastle Vipers of the Elite Ice Hockey League. Both Newcastle University and Northumbria Clubs often played at the Metro Radio Arena during hockey evenings hosted by the Vipers, indeed the Vipers included the game between the two University teams as part of their 'farewell evening' when they left the city centre rink.

History
The Wildcats have a storied history, claiming the first two university National Championships in 2001 and 2002. They have been less successful, however, in the BUIHA era of British university hockey. After winning the Division Two (North) title in 2004, a long trophy drought was ended by a rampant first team, who won the Division One (North) title for the 2009/10 season and advanced to the national playoff finals. In 2013 the Club's C-Team won the BUIHA Tier IV Nationals - a remarkable achievement as the squad had struggled throughout the year in the Cup competition.

The Newcastle Wildcats were officially formed in 1994 by Ian Pitcher, having existed as a loose collection of Newcastle University students in previous years. One of the original coaches & players for the team was ex NHL Pittsburgh Penguins and Whitley Warriors stalwart Mike Rowe (ice hockey) - who was studying for a postgraduate degree at the time. The newly-created Wildcats would play out of Whitley Bay Ice Rink, situated on the coast just outside the city centre and represented the city of Newcastle upon Tyne as a whole by pooling players from both Newcastle University and the newly-incorporated Northumbria University. This collaboration was the reason for the choice of the neutral Wildcats name, as opposed to Royals, which is the traditional nickname used by Newcastle University's sports teams. Throughout their early existence, the club iced only one team almost exclusively in challenge games against recreational ice hockey sides in the North East, rather than other higher education institutions.

This partnership lasted until 2001, when Northumbria University students formed a new side to call their own, the Flames. This was the same year of the first National Championships contested by British university sides, which was won by the Wildcats in their final appearance as a dual-university club. The success of this inaugural university tournament led to its repeat the following year, and it was again claimed by now single-institution Wildcats. With the National Championships a huge success and a growing number of institutions expressing interest in entering teams into competition, the Wildcats became a founding member of the British Universities Ice Hockey Association (BUIHA) upon its formation the following year in 2003.

With the creation of the BUIHA and with it properly organised divisions and regular competition against other universities, not least local rivals Northumbria, the level of interest swelled and the Wildcats launched a new team, the 'B' team, in 2004 to ice in the new third tier of university competition. The first team exceeded expectations this academic year of competition, claiming the top spot in Division Two's northern section to take the number of trophies lifted by the Wildcats to three in four years.

Two years later, another groundswell of interest in university ice hockey - particularly from students with little previous experience - led the club to set up a beginners' training programme and enter a development team, named the 'C' team, into the new third tier of BUIHA competition. With the aim of training and developing new players, the club continues to produce players who are able to compete at intermediate level competition with the 'B' team as little as twelve months after beginning to skate.

Stan Calvert Cup
Ice Hockey is one of the sports involved in the Annual Stan Calvert Cup Competition between Newcastle and Northumbria Universities. The games used to be played at the Metro Radio Arena (in the days when it had an ice pad) in front of crowds numbering in the hundreds (and occasionally, the thousands ) and often in the same programme as the Newcastle Vipers professional ice hockey team.

<!--In 2008's Division One, the Wildcats' first team began the season with big hopes of improving on the previous year following a strong intake of players. The Division One squad, captained by Marcus Hinkley - who also captained the Newcastle Vipers' English National League side - was bolstered by defencemen Janek Podhajecki and Stuart Tomlinson, both products of the Whitley Bay junior development programme along with Sheffield-born goaltender Chris Clapham. The Wildcats were also able to secure the services of Northumbria University students Matt Hinkley - brother of captain Marcus - and James Udell due to the Flames' lack of a Division One entry.

A slick opening day crushing of the Edinburgh Eagles raised hopes further, but the first team had constant problems icing a full strength side due to relying on so many players with ENL commitments, with away games against the Nottingham Mavericks and Edinburgh being played effectively by the 'B' team and subsequently lost despite valiant stand-in efforts. This caused the team to slip down the league rankings around the middle of the season. To compound their misery, the team also lost out to Northumbria's all-conquering Division Two side in the annual Stan Calvert Cup clash at the Metro Radio Arena in February. Towards the end of the year, despite the league title being out of their grasp, with the ENL season finished the team was able to ice at full strength again, beating eventual champions Nottingham at Whitley Bay and stunning the Sheffield Bears at IceSheffield. The team was agonisingly denied a place in the end-of-season playoffs by a Sheffield upset in Nottingham.

In Division Two, the season started with similar optimism. Talented forwards Martin Fletcher and Chris Payne had been added to the line-up and two successful products of the clubs' beginner programme, Chris Homans and Hamish Latchem, had been moved into the side. The season did not start so well as had been imagined, however, with defeats in Hull and at home against a strong Bradford Sabres side. Like all teams in the Northern section, the side also took two heavy beatings from a Northumbria side that would not have looked out of place a division higher. Towards the end of the season, however, results picked up and a win against Northumbria's second string was followed up by a 23-2 demolition of a Hull side that simply failed to travel.

Division Three saw record numbers of players training with the club, and the decision was taken by the club committee to enter two teams into the third tier for the first time in the history of the Wildcats. The sides were dubbed 'Blue' and 'White' after the main colours of the Newcastle uniform. The 'Blue' side took on the more experienced players - including new goaltender Scott Renfrey - and finished as league runners-up in the north. The 'White' team took the place of the traditional 'C' team as the development squad and iced an inexperienced side made up mostly of first-time hockey players. The 'White' team failed to win a game but succeeded in developing several players with Steven Boyle and Matthew Hinsley moving to Division Two and Joy Craighead - sister of the 'A' team's Ben - being named alternate captain of a more experienced Division Three line-up for 2009/10.

In 2013 the Wildcats C-team won the Tier IV BUIHA National Championships and the A-team were placed 3rd in their respective Tier I competition.-->

Ball/Dek/Floor Hockey
For many years the Club ran a 'Stick Training' session in the University Sports Centre. The aim of the session was to enhance the stick handling and fitness skills of players without the expense of valuable ice time. In the 2011-12 season Joy Craighead developed these sessions further and created the Club's Dek Squad. Dek, or 'Street & Ball Hockey', uses much of the same equipment as ice hockey but is played in a normal sports centre gym, rather than an ice rink, so players run rather than skate.

External Ball Hockey Competitions
In February 2012 members of the Squad competed in the Fantastic Fours Dek Tournament in Gateshead Leisure Centre earning themselves a fleeting appearance on BSkyB.

For the 2012-2013 season the Squad finished fourth in the UKBH Northern Conference {citation required|date=May 2013} and once again competed in the NEDekStars 'Fantastic Fours' Competition against 15 other teams - Squad Founder, Joy Craighead, was interviewed by BSkyB at the end of the tournament.

Internal Ball Hockey Competitions
Each year the Club holds a mini 3v3 tournament and competes for the 'Craighead Cup' (named after the tournament's founder, Joy Craighead). This is a chance for all members to have a bit of fun before the Annual Dinner and there other awards including the 'Best-Dressed' for the team with the most outstanding uniform and the 'Wooden Spoons' for the 'best losers'.