Philippine women's ice hockey back with a bang, trounces Kyrgyzstan in IIHF tiff

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine women’s ice hockey reintroduced itself to the international stage Sunday night with a convincing 7-4 victory against hosts Kyrgyzstan at the 2024 IIHF Women’s Asia and Oceania Cup at the Bishkek Arena.

In its first taste of IIHF action since the pandemic, the Philippine team recovered from a 2-3 deficit at the end of the first period to deny the home team a win on their ice.

Danielle Imperial scored the first goal of the game after just 53 seconds of the match but Kyrgyzstan’s Diana Kim scored thrice in the first 20 minutes of play to pull the hosts ahead after the first period.

But Bianca Cuevas, who also scored in the opening canto, found the back of the net for the second period’s lone goal to make the score level, 3-all, heading into the final 20 minutes of the match.

The Philippines upped the ante in crunch time with a four-goal output in the third period, with Imperial opening the floodgates with her second goal of the match five minutes into the final period.

Though Kim once again scored for the hosts, bringing her total to four, and equalize, shortly after Imperial’s goal, the Philippines ended up scoring thrice more to take the runaway victory late.

Kamil Cubillo provided the tiebreaker before Cuevas completed her trifecta at the 50:20 mark.

Recently recovered Kathleen Tan then put the icing on the cake just 26 seconds after to arrive at the final score.

Cuevas (three goals, one assist) and Imperial (two goals, two assists) were among heavy lifters in the win.

The Philippines play India next on Wednesday, March 27.