Ukraine started with a loss at the Women's Hockey World Championship.

The women's national hockey team of Ukraine began its participation in the 2025 World Championship. In the first match, the Ukrainians lost to the hosts of the competition - New Zealand, with a score of 3:4. This was reported by the website 'Glavcom' referring to 'Suspilne Sport'.

Ukraine is participating in the IIHF Women's World Championship for the first Time in five years. They made it there after winning in Division IIIA, where they had four victories out of five matches.

Despite the loss, the Ukrainians managed to earn their first point in the World Championship. They were able to bring the game into overtime, which denied the hosts of the tournament the maximum result.

The head coach of the women's national team of Ukraine, Yevhen Aliypov, commented on the game and the team's start in the tournament. He noted the speed demonstrated by the New Zealand players, which was different from their performances in Division IIIA.

'At this level, this is our first game. There was a friendly match with New Zealand, which showed that there is more speed in teams of this level. And this game showed completely different speeds, we need to get used to them. During the match, it was noticeable that we began to latch on and were not just watching how our opponents played, but also imposed our game. In some moments, especially in the second period, we controlled the game. What played its role? The opponents have more experience, more seasoned players. We still have a young team; we lacked experience in some areas. I won't say that we made gross mistakes - our opponents just pressured us at certain moments. The second goal in the last seconds could have been avoided; we lacked in overtime. At the end, we had a power play 5 on 4; we needed to score a goal, whether at the beginning of overtime or here. But as it happens in sports: if you don’t score, you get scored on,' said Aliypov.

Ukraine's next opponent will be Turkey. According to Aliypov, the team is determined to win this match.

'I'm not going to say that we know them. We saw how they played against Australia in the third period. The team has players who can score, can outplay. They have a good goalkeeper: against Australia, they faced 49 shots but only lost 0:2. It will be a tough game. We'll analyze the game, what we did wrong, to draw conclusions. We need a victory, and we'll do everything we can to defeat the Turkish national team,' said Aliypov.

Aliypov assured that his team will not have as many easy games as this first one in the tournament. He noted that three teams - New Zealand, Australia, and Belgium - are favorites and higher-level teams. There is no option for Ukraine to give up, so a lot of effort will be needed to win.

Ukraine's match schedule at the Women's Hockey World Championship

• Tuesday, April 15, 07:30. Turkey - Ukraine
• Thursday, April 17, 07:30. Australia - Ukraine
• Saturday, April 19, 07:30. Ukraine - Belgium
• Sunday, April 20, 04:00. Hong Kong - Ukraine

It should be noted that the team 'Kremenchuk' won the Ukrainian Hockey Championship.