Great Britain's hopes of gold dashed by Hungary

GREAT Britain's hopes of World Championship gold and promotion to ice hockey's elite league are over after a 2-0 defeat to Hungary in Slovenia.

Hungary goaltender Zoltan Hetenyi produced a man-of-the-match display with a 35-shot shut-out - his third in a row in the Division One Group B campaign in Slovenia.

Hungary's goals came from Daniel Fekete and Krisztian Palkovics while Great Britain could not find a way through - Ashley Tait's saved penalty shot typical of their profligacy in front of goal.

Great Britain head coach Paul Thompson said: "When the opposition goalie wins the man of the match you know you were in for a tough afternoon's work.

"I can't be disappointed with the performance or the effort, we played a hell of game, totally committed for the whole 60 minutes. In the end we just ran up against a stunning performance from a really quality player in Hetenyi.

"We had chances but I'm not blaming any of the players, every one of them gave me everything they had.

"A couple of years ago we used to come to these Championships and play in the relegation game at the end of the event, now we are all gutted we aren't playing in the gold medal game on Friday, that's how far this programme has come."

Great Britain will now face Poland in the bronze medal match in a bid to repeat their feat of 12 months ago where they claimed their first medal for eight years.