A NORTHWICH youngster is making great progress in ice hockey.

It has led to Jakub Vaněk recently competed overseas with the England Power of 12 national team.

He started playing for Manchester Storm Academy two years ago and trains three times a week at Altrincham Ice Rink under head coach Janne Kääriäinen.

In September, he was put forward for trials for the under 12s England national team programme which involved three full days at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham and a day at the Ozone in London.

Two months later he was selected for the final team which consisted of the top 30 players in the age group in the UK, who travelled to Trenčín in Bratislava for a training camp and a tournament against Slovakia.

They spent an action-packed week fully immersed in ice hockey.

The boys trained four times on the ice each day, plus they played five matches.

On top of that, the players enjoyed a surprise bonus training session with legendary power skating coach Peter Bohunicky, who works with a number of NHL players and also last year at Florida Panthers' training camp as a skills coach.

The squad won all but one game and were given their first glimpses of what being an elite ice hockey player entails.

Having been assessed in Slovakia, Jakub has also been chosen to represent the UK in Riga, Latvia, in April to play in the under 12s AAA tournament against a select group of European teams.

During the off-ice months in the UK, Jakub travels to Prague where he trains in the small town of Velké Popovice with Bukač Hockey.