Women's ice hockey team scouting for more players

Women's ice hockey team Cambridge Kodiaks are based at the city's Ice Arena

A female ice hockey team that has just clinched second place in a league during its first season has appealed for more members to join as the women's sport continues to grow, it said.

Cambridge Kodiacs started competing in October, joining the Women's National Ice Hockey League Division Two South.

The 25-strong squad, led by captain Christina Ashley, narrowly missed out on a promotion place in Sheffield last weekend.

"It's going out and playing a sport you really, really, love and putting an insane amount of dedication into it and it's really fun," she said.

The Cambridge Kodiaks are a new team that started playing in October

Ashley, 35, who is from Ontario, Canada, and started skating at the age of two, said while the women's sport was "definitely different" in the UK, the newly-launched Professional Women's Hockey League's (PWHL) in North America demonstrated its scale of growth.

"[People] thought for a long time there would be no interest in the women's game," she said.

"That it would be totally different and no-one would want to see it, but it's incredibly entertaining; a really great sport and they've been packing out arenas, selling them out."

In a bid to build on its success, the Cambridge Kodiacs are holding two trial sessions later this month and inviting girls and women to apply.

The team only formed last year after a women's ice hockey session at the Cambridge Ice Arena prompted the idea to develop a competitive squad.

Cambridge Kodiaks are joined in the league by fellow county team Peterborough Phantoms

For Ashley, who moved to the UK with her scientist husband, it was her first season back after giving birth to her second child.

"I went back [to playing] when she was seven months - it was a bit crazy but she is obsessed with ice hockey too now and loves watching," said the marketing manager.

Ashley said members, aged 15 upwards, trained on the ice for at least 90 minutes a week and travelled across the country to compete at weekends.

She said their devotion to the sport and "unrivalled team spirit" were big factors in their success so far.

However, she said the gender gap in the sport still put female players at a disadvantage.

She said she knew of one women's club which could only train on the ice rink between 23:00 and midnight on a Friday, once other teams and sessions were over.

"We're very fortunate we have teams to play with - and we're really happy about that - but we get terrible ice times sometimes," said Ashley, who's been playing for about 30 years in Canada, France, England and Sweden.

"In the men's NHL [in the US] you can go anywhere from being paid $1.5m to $10m in a season... the women's side in the PWHL - their first round of contracts was between $50,000 and $80,000 so there's a massive gap."

Ashley also said longer seasons in the women's game added to competition and training costs and the team now hoped to find a sponsor and develop the amateur side.

"Our goal is to provide a space for women to play that's free to play," she said.

"So they can come, play their sport, give it as much dedication as they need and have the support there to not have it drain their bank accounts."