When Alice Beardmore (Natural Sciences (Physical) 2018 and Chemistry PhD 2022) tells people she plays ice hockey, most are surprised there is a Cambridge University team. When she tells them she is the goaltender (or goalkeeper), they start to question her sanity.

“It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s for sure,” says Alice, “I love the adrenaline rush, I feel so great when I’m on the ice! There’s no better feeling than stopping a breakaway or catching the puck out of the air!”

She thinks it runs in the family.

“Recently, I found out that my grandma played goalie for East of England lacrosse team. Clearly, I inherited some skills there,” she adds.

Alice has played field hockey all her life, starting at school and playing for Cambridge University Hockey Club, CUHC, for three seasons. She joined CUHC during her final year of study as an undergraduate at Gonville & Caius College and kept playing when she stayed on for a PhD at Caius. She participated in three Varsity matches, playing two as a winger/centre forward, but stepped in last-minute as a goalkeeper for the thirds in the 2024 Varsity Match, when the club was short on goalies.

Alice was encouraged to try ice hockey by a life-long friend, who had started playing at Cambridge. As a postgraduate, Alice is in Cambridge year-round so had an opportunity to try summer taster sessions where she built her skating confidence. The Women’s Blues needed a ‘tendy’, so Alice was selected at trials thanks to her enthusiasm for the position. 

During her first season in Cambridge University Ice Hockey Club (CUIHC), Alice was selected to be the starting goaltender for the Women’s Blues varsity match, where the team were narrowly defeated by a strong Oxford squad 4-3. However, the team excelled in Sheffield at the British University Ice Hockey Association National Championships, where the 2024 Women’s Blues Squad were the first Cambridge team ever to bring home the national title, pictured below. Alice saved 95% of shots taken on her in the final, and the team scored the game winning goal with two seconds to go, to take home the trophy in the most dramatic end to a season.

Alice had such a great time with CUIHC in her first season that she took up the role of Club President for the 2024/2025 season. She successfully campaigned for six Extraordinary Full Blues to be awarded to the Women’s Blues to celebrate their national title, as they previously only held Half-Blue status. Alice also organised a new training camp initiative in Prague (January 2025) for the Women’s team to develop their skating and hockey skills, and to prepare for the 2025 Blues Varsity Match: Sunday 23 February, at Oxford Ice Arena. 

This year, CUIHC celebrates 140 years since the first ice hockey match between Oxford and Cambridge, which is believed to be the oldest ice hockey rivalry in history. CUIHC has recently grown from strength to strength, largely due to the construction of Cambridge Ice Arena, where the teams train every week.

Professor Bill Harris, a Fellow of Clare College and Emeritus Professor of Anatomy, led the campaign for a permanent ice arena to be built in Cambridge. The project was inspired by Cambridge alumnus David Gattiker of Christ’s College (1929-1931), who was also captain of the University team. His £1m bequest on his death in 1993, donations from other alumni and £2.4m loan funding from South Cambridgeshire District Council, plus the gift of the land off Newmarket Road from the Marshall family, saw the build begin in 2017 and conclude in 2019. So successful has the arena been that there are seven ice hockey teams who train and compete there, plus recreational skating, figure skating and curling. 

Alice had only been ice skating once or twice before taking to the ice in summer 2023. Now she intends to continue beyond her Cambridge days, having enjoyed both the sporting and social sides of the club, including club swaps with the University Australian Rules Football Club, and the infamous ‘Bill’s Birthday Dinner’.

“Socially, it's brilliant,” she says. “It's very postgrad friendly. I had a great time with CUHC, but it's quite undergrad-dominated whereas we rely on finding international students, often postgrads, that have played before, and then we mix them up with the new players who've never played before but bring field hockey or figure skating skills, and are really keen.”

Alice’s PhD, co-supervised by Caius Fellow Professor Dominic Wright and Professor Dame Clare Grey, is focused on developing sustainable battery technologies. She works in the chemistry department, using synthesis, materials characterisation and electrochemistry to work on making sodium-ion batteries more efficient, renewable and sustainable.