Hello worlds: Great Britain returns to hockey's big international stage

If you read far enough back on the history of Olympic men's hockey champions - past Russia's first gold medal and Canada's reign to open the 21st century; before the Miracle on Ice and the halcyon days of the Soviet Red Machine - you'll eventually come across a glaring outlier.

In 1936, Great Britain rolled to gold in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, ahead of Canada, the United States, and other wintry countries that have consistently vied for international podiums ever since.

Britain didn't lose a game in that tournament, befitting a team of mostly Canadian dual nationals that was somewhat of a force in the era. The Brits finished third at the world championship in 1935. They placed second in 1937 and 1938.

Then came World War II, and several decades of progressively worse results.

The sport's elite haven't had to care about Great Britain for a very long time. But with another world championship set to begin on Friday in Slovakia, hope of a return to relevance is blooming in the British ranks.

"Our goal is to come in and surprise some teams," Brett Perlini, a right-winger for Britain and the Nottingham Panthers in the United Kingdom's Elite Ice Hockey League, said this week in a phone interview.

"We've got to embrace the underdog role, I think. You never know how games are going to play out."

With homegrown players from the EIHL primarily powering Britain, the team is back in the marquee tier of the IIHF's men's competition for the first time in 25 years. Ever since its national team crashed out of the 1994 championship while allowing 44 goals over five painful losses, Britain has spent a portion of each spring playing against the likes of Japan, Ukraine, Lithuania, and other hockey minnows in the tournament's secondary and tertiary divisions.

Last April in Budapest, the Brits cinched promotion to the 2019 main draw by winning the second-tier tournament, known as Division I, Group A, on a wrist shot from the corner in the waning seconds of their final game against host Hungary. The source of that last-ditch heroism was Perlini's Nottingham teammate Robert Farmer. His game-tying goal gave Britain the point it needed to beat the Hungarians in the standings.

Britain's reward, for at least 10 days starting on Saturday, is the right to test itself against heavyweight countries and rosters filled with NHLers and European pros, including Canada, the U.S., Slovakia, and Finland. Its first opponent, Germany, features Leon Draisaitl and much of the lineup that won silver at the 2018 Olympics.

The world championship is often perceived in North America as an afterthought to the NHL playoffs, and a consolation prize for players whose seasons are otherwise over by now. But it means something entirely different to squads pushing to qualify.

Entering the tournament, Britain is 22nd in the IIHF world rankings, directly ahead of Japan, Ukraine, and Lithuania, and nine slots behind any other team in its round-robin group.

That calculus seems pessimistic, but interpreted another way, Britain has an opportunity that programs of its stature covet annually: the slim chance to make noise in front of a global audience.

"Every one of the individual players wants to showcase themselves on the world stage," said Perlini, whose younger brother Brendan plays left wing for the Chicago Blackhawks.

"To get British hockey on the map - to get people realizing there's a decent league in Britain, there's decent players in Britain, the national team's making progress - I think it's huge for the country, overall."

Often, a team that moves up from Division I, Group A fails to win even once and is promptly relegated from the ensuing year's top-tier tournament. That was Italy and Slovenia's fate in 2017 and South Korea's in 2018, a few months after the Koreans competed at the Olympics as hosts. Korea scored four goals and conceded 48 over seven games at the worlds, including a 10-0 loss to Canada and losing 13-1 to the U.S.

Next May, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the teams that edged South Korea last week for the top two spots in Division I-A, will take their turns in the top flight. For Britain to ward off immediate relegation, it likely needs to win at least one game against the weaker opponents in its group, namely Denmark (which has one NHLer: Ottawa Senators forward Mikkel Boedker) and France.

"We're going to have to play very disciplined, very structured, and stick together and play as a team," Perlini said. "There's no individuals on this team. Everybody's going to come together. Sacrifice is a big thing for us."

A recent uptick in the EIHL's caliber of play has abetted Britain's improvement. Imported players from North America have had a hand in that trend, but Britain's head coach, Peter Russell, has said the EIHL's best 20 or so born-and-bred Brits - the players who now comprise four-fifths of this world championship roster - are just as good as anyone in the league.

From a North American perspective, Britain's most intriguing player is forward Liam Kirk, the Arizona Coyotes' seventh-round draft pick last year. The 19-year-old grew up in England and joined the Ontario Hockey League's Peterborough Petes this season, and he could become the first prospect developed through U.K. minor hockey to make it to the NHL. (Every player on this extensive list of U.K.-born NHLers developed elsewhere in the world.)

A handful of Canadian dual citizens will also play key roles for Britain. Forwards Ben Lake and Mike Hammond, the EIHL's second- and fourth-leading scorers this season, both played junior hockey in Canada. They later moved on to the low-minors ECHL, followed by the EIHL and the British national team.

Defensemen Tim Billingsley and Dallas Ehrhardt have followed the same trajectory, as has Perlini, the MVP of last year's Division I-A tournament. (Perlini's dad, Fred, is a former Toronto Maple Leafs prospect who starred in the British league for the latter half of his pro career.)

Like the members of Britain's 1936 Olympic title team, those players will experience the odd sensation of lining up against their home country on Sunday. Though John Tavares has flown home to Toronto after injuring an oblique muscle, Canada can still count Mark Stone, Jonathan Marchessault, Sean Couturier, and Matt Murray as some of its brightest stars.

That game will likely be a lost cause from the outset, and the result almost certainly won't impact whether Britain retains its place in the top tier. What the Brits hope to prove, though, is that their program has come too far to be cowed.

"We've just got to play hard every game," Perlini said. "Even if we could find ourselves against Canada down by a lot of goals, we're going to fight right to the end."

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.