Great Britain have confirmed Martin Cingel has joined the U18 team as assistant coach.

Cingel has been in the UK since 2002 and spent the majority of his career with Edinburgh Capitals. The Slovakian is currently in charge of Edinburgh’s SNL team.

Head Coach Martin Grubb said: “I’m delighted to be able to add Martin to our coaching staff.

“”He is someone with a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience in the game and has been in this country for over ten years and knows our game inside out.

“I feel he will be able to use his knowledge of the UK game, along with his European experience, to help our team and give us a different dimension to our staff.

“It is always key that you can trust the people you work with and Martin is someone who will fit straight into our group and will do a great job.

“I would like to place on record my thanks to James Pease for doing such a good job and helping our programme get better.”

The U18 team are currently at a training camp in Slovakia and Austria ahead of the World Championship (Division 2A) tournament which starts at the weekend.

GB will play two matches in two days, starting with Tuesday’s game against OHA Europe in St Polten, Austria, before the two sides meet in Bratislava the following day.

The team then moves onto the World Championship to face hosts Korea, along with Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania and Romania, from 1st to 8th April.

Grubb added: “This is a huge part of our preparations and it will set us up well for the tournament ahead.

“Everyone is in good spirits. We had a good training session yesterday and this morning. The boys are focused.”

(Image permission: Ian Coyle)