Captain Jodie Alderson-Smith is one of around half a dozen GB women who play for a men’s team as well as a women’s side as they seek a physical edge against “bigger, taller and stronger” teams.

But the men’s game is very different – body checking is not allowed in the women’s – and she says “some players will go out to hit the girl”.

“There are a couple of teams in the league … [who] don’t like it when you do something good and they shout some abuse from the bench, but I just laugh at them at times,” said Alderson-Smith, who plays in the English men’s fourth tier for Coventry Blaze as well as the women’s top tier for Solihull Vixens.

“I’m just like, ‘Well, pick on the girl, go on.’ It’s silly behaviour, really, but it’s just what it is.”

Alderson-Smith says playing with men also “makes you think a lot quicker”.

“Sometimes they’re not the right decisions, but they [men] do think a lot quicker… and the passes come quicker.”

Playing men’s hockey does not always pay off, though.

“I was playing my first game,” forward Katie Marsden said. “I got hit by someone, I dislocated my shoulder, and that ended my men’s career quite suddenly.”

She added that playing men’s hockey was “not an ideal solution” as it was “not worth the balance of potentially having career-ending injuries”.

It would be better to develop the game through visibility to drive participation in a similar way to what the Lionesses have done for women’s football, she said.

There are areas of progress in the women’s game, with the players saying increased funding this year has meant they can now access experts in areas such as physiotherapy, strength and conditioning and nutrition.

“[Previously] I think a lot of the girls left little niggles which have then kind of built into a bigger niggle,” Alderson-Smith said.

“Whereas now that we can be treated weekly, three times a week if you need it – like people are on us and making sure that we are the best that we can be really.”

It also means trainee doctor Marsden is no longer diagnosing her team-mates’ ailments.

“Luckily they can turn their heads to them rather than me,” she laughed.

There has also been development in equipment with companies increasingly seeking to produce female-specific kit, while UK Sport has put a record £900,000 into ice hockey in this Olympic and Paralympic cycle.