Hungarian success at U18 Women’s Championship Division 1

05 Jan 2012 | Fredrik Pålsson

Hungary had never entered the Women's U18 Championship before and never played higher than division 2 at the World Women's Championships. Now the Hungarian U18 girls are qualfied for the top division of next year's U18 Women's World Championship.

The Hungarian team won all five games at the qualification tournament to qualify for division 1. Entering the tournament for the first time they were not one of the favourites. But after the starting the tournament beating Austria 4-3 Hungary went on to win all five games only losing one point when they needed penalty shots to beat Japan. With the victory in division 1 Hungary will now be one of eight teams playing in the top division next year.

Hungary will now compete with top nations as Canada and USA next year which probably will be a hard task for this team. But with 15 out of 20 players in the roster eligible to play next year perhaps they can surprise again.

Austria defeated Japan after penalty shots to finish second on the same points as Japan who was third. Host Norway was a bit of a disapointment in fourth place only beating Great Britan and Slovakia. Great Britain placed fifth but played several closed games against the top teams. Slovakia who are playing at top level at the Women's Championship did a poor performance here only scoring five goals in five games losing all games with at three goals or more.

Japan's Shizuka Takahashi was selected the best goalie by the IIHF Directorate. Norway's Victoria Løvdahl was selected the best defender while Hungary's Alexandra Huszak got the award as the best forward. She was also the top scorer of the tournament with seven goals and three assists. Teammate Fanni Gasparics also had ten points, scoring two goals and eight assists.

As for all World Championships tournament complete box scores and stats from all games are found on the tournament page.