Introduction
Yes, there is ice hockey in Australia. It has been played here since 1904, a tenacious minor sport nurtured in a handful of rinks by a cabal of dedicated devotees. Today, visionary optimists say a recent surge in popularity has left the game poised on the brink of emergence from the Australian sporting underground. Pessimist realists say it will remain obscure, unable to overcome its usual obstacles. As you will read, there is plenty of evidence to support either contention.
As a child, I played a hundred games of hockey (aficionados drop the word ‘ice’). My parents are both Canadian and the youth of that nation are put on skates before they walk; to do otherwise is considered child abuse. But I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, and it was in that city’s humble rinks that my love of hockey was fostered. I first went to a rink when I was three, attending my dad’s Blackhawks training, where I met my first best friends, Glenn and Tim Grandy, the sons of Charlie, a legend of the Australian game. Blackhawks folk helped raise me and form my character. But I last played in 1981. I used to have dreams in which I was playing, eerie reminders of a neglected passion, but my life changed and the small but vibrant Victorian hockey scene of my youth shrank to one suburban rink, the oldest and tiniest, at suburban Oakleigh. I meant to get back to hockey but never did. Since I last played, Glenn Grandy became a Victorian, New South Wales and Australian representative and Melbourne Ice pioneer. He is now president of the Blackhawks, still plays defence in the seniors and has logged close to a thousand games.
My absence from hockey had grown to 30 years when my brother Craig took me to a Melbourne Ice game at the newly opened, state-of-the-art Icehouse near the Melbourne CBD in 2011. Watching the Ice forwards rush towards us, Craig and I held our breath, anticipating the final pass, our nervous systems exhilarated. We turned to each other and said, “How good is this?!” It was good, very bloody good.
The Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) was providing the best, most competitive hockey ever seen down under, featuring crisp passing, an absence of goonery, and packed houses in a clean, modern venue complete with a proper grandstand. Previous Melbourne rinks of my acquaintance had provided stands that were not grand, or even good. Paltry stands. Ignoble stands. Dingy, rough concrete and plywood terraces used as makeshift seats by hardy, blanket-packing family members of hockey players. There had been no such thing as fans. At that first Icehouse game, I realised I was back in love with hockey. I became a rapt weekly visitor, then I began writing about what I felt was as good a sporting experience as any on offer in sports-mad Melbourne for theage.com.au, the website of the Melbourne Age newspaper. That meant getting to know Ice’s rink-mate, the Melbourne Mustangs, only a couple of years old and headed by a president, John Belic, who was happy to admit “mistakes had to be made” for his club to learn. “We have learnt a lot!” he joked gleefully of his new club’s formative years.
Then I flew to Newcastle to watch the thrilling 2012 AIHL grand final between the Newcastle North Stars and the Melbourne Ice. Entranced by the atmosphere in that smaller, more intimate venue, and inspired by stories of the league’s other, more idiosyncratic rinks, I determined to visit them all. Fulfilling that ambition led to the writing of this book, in which I witnessed games at each AIHL team’s rink. I’m rapt to be back in the hockey world, and happy to be helping to spread the word to newcomers, 99 per cent of whom love the spectacle and return to watch it again. But for most of the world, Australian hockey remains a mystery. So here is a primer.
The Australian national team, ranked 34 in the world, plays five times a year, usually overseas, in April, in Division Two of the World Championships. The AIHL season runs between April and September in Newcastle (North Stars); Sydney (Bears and Ice Dogs); Canberra (Knights); Adelaide (Adrenaline); Perth (Thunder) and Melbourne (Ice and Mustangs).
Games are played over two 15-minute periods and a third of 20 minutes, rather than the three 20-minute periods played everywhere else. Rink costs are blamed, but the suspicion remains that some clubs cannot afford to carry the extra players who would be required if three proper length periods were played. Teams play under International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) rules, under which fighting is punished by game misconducts and suspensions.
If scores are tied after regular time expires, a shootout determines the result. Teams receive three points for a win, two points for a shootout win and one point for a shootout loss. Each AIHL team is allowed six imports on its roster, four of whom can play in any one game. They are usually stars from minor professional hockey in North American and Europe, and invariably lead the AIHL scoring and goalie statistics at the end of the season. Despite the absence of payment, there are hundreds of well-performed internationals desperate to experience the AIHL, and the selection process takes clubs months.
The eight teams contest a 28-game season aiming to make a final four, and compete in sudden-death finals. Hockey is usually played over at least best of three finals, and best of seven at the highest professional level, but in Australia there are two sudden-death semi-finals – first versus fourth and second versus third on the Saturday, followed by a winner-takes-all grand final the following day. The teams are competing for the Goodall Cup, previously awarded to the senior men’s state champion team, a trophy variously regarded as either the third- or fifth-oldest piece of silverware in the entire sport.
The league’s knockout format resembles the hockey tournament at the Winter Olympics, which is fitting because the entire league is amateur. Referees get a minor stipend, but the players get no payment, nor do the league’s administrators. The league’s main commissioner Robert Bannerman doesn’t take a cent from his position, and like every player, coach and staff member, he has to balance his hockey duties with his paid employment. Off the ice, the league depends on the largesse of hockey-loving volunteers.
In 2010, James Morgan, a tech-savvy new fan with a background in amateur theatre, began live streams of Ice games on the internet. James’s crew morphed, quick-smart, into a professional sports broadcast company, ATC Productions. In 2012, Ice allowed a camera crew of hockey-fan film-makers from Resolution Media to follow the team during what turned out to be its third consecutive championship-winning season. The resulting lovingly crafted six-part documentary Ice: Road To Threepeat aired repeatedly on Fox Sports, opening up an interest in the league now filled by ATC, which produces coverage of a game of the week for Fox Sports. ATC also provides livestreams for Ice and the Mustangs on the internet, helps other clubs set up their own livestream services, and is a sponsor of the league, but still does not prosper directly from its altruistic ventures.
The AIHL began in 2001 with Adelaide Avalanche, the Sydney Bears and the Canberra Knights. The West Sydney Ice Dogs, Newcastle North Stars and Melbourne Ice joined in 2002, and the Central Coast Rhinos and Brisbane Blue Tongues in 2005. The Rhinos departed in 2009 and the Blue Tongues, by then playing out of the Gold Coast, were forced out of existence due to rink issues in 2013. The Melbourne Mustangs joined in 2011 and Perth Thunder in 2012. The AIHL is by far the longest-lived of many attempts at a national competition in Australia, and the first to threaten to bring hockey to prominence.
Given the huge distances between many of the teams, and the need to get players back for their day jobs, plane travel is used as much as buses, much to the delight of minor-pro imports who are accustomed to endless cross-country bus trips in the northern hemisphere, and all but two games are played on Saturdays and Sundays.
The sport has little national mainstream media coverage aside from the weekly replay of the game of the week on Pay TV station Fox Sports, and for three years my articles on theage.com.au, though Canberra and Newcastle are well covered by local agencies. Newspapers rarely cover the game, even its elite professional iteration the NHL (National Hockey League), and the free-to-air electronic media generally shuns the sport unless it is to show fighting. Social media has proved a boon to Australian hockey, offering fans great access and clubs cheap means of spreading their message, but the vast majority of the Australian populace remain ignorant about the sport.
So what was the state of play of this unique league at the start of 2014? The Sydney Ice Dogs had claimed the 2013 title after beating Melbourne Ice (who had won the three previous titles) in their tough, tight semi-final, then dominating perennial contenders the Newcastle North Stars in the final. Perth Thunder, in their second year of existence, had defied the odds, yet confirmed insider predictions, by making the finals. The Mustangs, Melbourne’s newer team, had begun getting their house in order under new coach Brad Vigon, a former Ice player and assistant coach, and they just missed the playoffs. Adelaide Adrenaline, a perennial powerhouse, had narrowly missed the finals, and were expected to fight back strongly in 2014. The Canberra Knights, possessed of a rabid fan base despite never having made the finals, won just two games in 2013. The Sydney Bears remained competitive for the majority of the season, but their crowds were moderate and they ended up with only seven wins.
The consensus is that the standard of play in the league has improved by 10 per cent a year since 2010, and clubs are becoming more ‘professional’ about their import selection, training, preparation and road trips. Australian hockey fans have always said that once decent venues were built and a decent league put in place, Australians would fall in love with hockey. Pace, skill under pressure, big hits – hockey had everything Australians love in their passionately followed football codes.
Crowd numbers outstripped the wildest hopes of hockey officials from the day the Icehouse opened, and rates of interest in adult hockey programs skyrocketed in Melbourne. The sport faces big issues, as you will see, but its fragile national league is thriving as never before.
This book is the story of the 2014 AIHL season, and the sights and sounds I found at its quirky outposts. It features the Melbourne clubs more strongly than any others because my interstate journeys ended up giving me greater insights into the teams I travelled with than those I visited, Melbourne Ice and the Melbourne Mustangs graciously having offered me unfettered access on three trips each. I have tried to reveal key voices from each club, but like the players, coaches and officials I spoke to, I had a day job throughout this project, so inevitably this work features more insights from the two Melbourne rivals.
My observations are abetted by the acumen of two expert and friendly guides: Melbourne Ice’s Canadian import Matt Armstrong, and Melbourne Mustangs’ American import Pat O’Kane.
This book does not claim to be the definitive account of the AIHL or of hockey in Australia, but I believe I have caught the league, and Australian hockey, at a fascinating point in their history. I hope that you enjoy reading this chronicle as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it, for this hockey enclave is generous, creative, passionate and fun-loving, and it deserves celebration.
Yes, there is ice hockey in Australia. It has been played here since 1904, a tenacious minor sport nurtured in a handful of rinks by a cabal of dedicated devotees. Today, visionary optimists say a recent surge in popularity has left the game poised on the brink of emergence from the Australian sporting underground. Pessimist realists say it will remain obscure, unable to overcome its usual obstacles. As you will read, there is plenty of evidence to support either contention.
As a child, I played a hundred games of hockey (aficionados drop the word ‘ice’). My parents are both Canadian and the youth of that nation are put on skates before they walk; to do otherwise is considered child abuse. But I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, and it was in that city’s humble rinks that my love of hockey was fostered. I first went to a rink when I was three, attending my dad’s Blackhawks training, where I met my first best friends, Glenn and Tim Grandy, the sons of Charlie, a legend of the Australian game. Blackhawks folk helped raise me and form my character. But I last played in 1981. I used to have dreams in which I was playing, eerie reminders of a neglected passion, but my life changed and the small but vibrant Victorian hockey scene of my youth shrank to one suburban rink, the oldest and tiniest, at suburban Oakleigh. I meant to get back to hockey but never did. Since I last played, Glenn Grandy became a Victorian, New South Wales and Australian representative and Melbourne Ice pioneer. He is now president of the Blackhawks, still plays defence in the seniors and has logged close to a thousand games.
My absence from hockey had grown to 30 years when my brother Craig took me to a Melbourne Ice game at the newly opened, state-of-the-art Icehouse near the Melbourne CBD in 2011. Watching the Ice forwards rush towards us, Craig and I held our breath, anticipating the final pass, our nervous systems exhilarated. We turned to each other and said, “How good is this?!” It was good, very bloody good.
The Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) was providing the best, most competitive hockey ever seen down under, featuring crisp passing, an absence of goonery, and packed houses in a clean, modern venue complete with a proper grandstand. Previous Melbourne rinks of my acquaintance had provided stands that were not grand, or even good. Paltry stands. Ignoble stands. Dingy, rough concrete and plywood terraces used as makeshift seats by hardy, blanket-packing family members of hockey players. There had been no such thing as fans. At that first Icehouse game, I realised I was back in love with hockey. I became a rapt weekly visitor, then I began writing about what I felt was as good a sporting experience as any on offer in sports-mad Melbourne for theage.com.au, the website of the Melbourne Age newspaper. That meant getting to know Ice’s rink-mate, the Melbourne Mustangs, only a couple of years old and headed by a president, John Belic, who was happy to admit “mistakes had to be made” for his club to learn. “We have learnt a lot!” he joked gleefully of his new club’s formative years.
Then I flew to Newcastle to watch the thrilling 2012 AIHL grand final between the Newcastle North Stars and the Melbourne Ice. Entranced by the atmosphere in that smaller, more intimate venue, and inspired by stories of the league’s other, more idiosyncratic rinks, I determined to visit them all. Fulfilling that ambition led to the writing of this book, in which I witnessed games at each AIHL team’s rink. I’m rapt to be back in the hockey world, and happy to be helping to spread the word to newcomers, 99 per cent of whom love the spectacle and return to watch it again. But for most of the world, Australian hockey remains a mystery. So here is a primer.
The Australian national team, ranked 34 in the world, plays five times a year, usually overseas, in April, in Division Two of the World Championships. The AIHL season runs between April and September in Newcastle (North Stars); Sydney (Bears and Ice Dogs); Canberra (Knights); Adelaide (Adrenaline); Perth (Thunder) and Melbourne (Ice and Mustangs).
Games are played over two 15-minute periods and a third of 20 minutes, rather than the three 20-minute periods played everywhere else. Rink costs are blamed, but the suspicion remains that some clubs cannot afford to carry the extra players who would be required if three proper length periods were played. Teams play under International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) rules, under which fighting is punished by game misconducts and suspensions.
If scores are tied after regular time expires, a shootout determines the result. Teams receive three points for a win, two points for a shootout win and one point for a shootout loss. Each AIHL team is allowed six imports on its roster, four of whom can play in any one game. They are usually stars from minor professional hockey in North American and Europe, and invariably lead the AIHL scoring and goalie statistics at the end of the season. Despite the absence of payment, there are hundreds of well-performed internationals desperate to experience the AIHL, and the selection process takes clubs months.
The eight teams contest a 28-game season aiming to make a final four, and compete in sudden-death finals. Hockey is usually played over at least best of three finals, and best of seven at the highest professional level, but in Australia there are two sudden-death semi-finals – first versus fourth and second versus third on the Saturday, followed by a winner-takes-all grand final the following day. The teams are competing for the Goodall Cup, previously awarded to the senior men’s state champion team, a trophy variously regarded as either the third- or fifth-oldest piece of silverware in the entire sport.
The league’s knockout format resembles the hockey tournament at the Winter Olympics, which is fitting because the entire league is amateur. Referees get a minor stipend, but the players get no payment, nor do the league’s administrators. The league’s main commissioner Robert Bannerman doesn’t take a cent from his position, and like every player, coach and staff member, he has to balance his hockey duties with his paid employment. Off the ice, the league depends on the largesse of hockey-loving volunteers.
In 2010, James Morgan, a tech-savvy new fan with a background in amateur theatre, began live streams of Ice games on the internet. James’s crew morphed, quick-smart, into a professional sports broadcast company, ATC Productions. In 2012, Ice allowed a camera crew of hockey-fan film-makers from Resolution Media to follow the team during what turned out to be its third consecutive championship-winning season. The resulting lovingly crafted six-part documentary Ice: Road To Threepeat aired repeatedly on Fox Sports, opening up an interest in the league now filled by ATC, which produces coverage of a game of the week for Fox Sports. ATC also provides livestreams for Ice and the Mustangs on the internet, helps other clubs set up their own livestream services, and is a sponsor of the league, but still does not prosper directly from its altruistic ventures.
The AIHL began in 2001 with Adelaide Avalanche, the Sydney Bears and the Canberra Knights. The West Sydney Ice Dogs, Newcastle North Stars and Melbourne Ice joined in 2002, and the Central Coast Rhinos and Brisbane Blue Tongues in 2005. The Rhinos departed in 2009 and the Blue Tongues, by then playing out of the Gold Coast, were forced out of existence due to rink issues in 2013. The Melbourne Mustangs joined in 2011 and Perth Thunder in 2012. The AIHL is by far the longest-lived of many attempts at a national competition in Australia, and the first to threaten to bring hockey to prominence.
Given the huge distances between many of the teams, and the need to get players back for their day jobs, plane travel is used as much as buses, much to the delight of minor-pro imports who are accustomed to endless cross-country bus trips in the northern hemisphere, and all but two games are played on Saturdays and Sundays.
The sport has little national mainstream media coverage aside from the weekly replay of the game of the week on Pay TV station Fox Sports, and for three years my articles on theage.com.au, though Canberra and Newcastle are well covered by local agencies. Newspapers rarely cover the game, even its elite professional iteration the NHL (National Hockey League), and the free-to-air electronic media generally shuns the sport unless it is to show fighting. Social media has proved a boon to Australian hockey, offering fans great access and clubs cheap means of spreading their message, but the vast majority of the Australian populace remain ignorant about the sport.
So what was the state of play of this unique league at the start of 2014? The Sydney Ice Dogs had claimed the 2013 title after beating Melbourne Ice (who had won the three previous titles) in their tough, tight semi-final, then dominating perennial contenders the Newcastle North Stars in the final. Perth Thunder, in their second year of existence, had defied the odds, yet confirmed insider predictions, by making the finals. The Mustangs, Melbourne’s newer team, had begun getting their house in order under new coach Brad Vigon, a former Ice player and assistant coach, and they just missed the playoffs. Adelaide Adrenaline, a perennial powerhouse, had narrowly missed the finals, and were expected to fight back strongly in 2014. The Canberra Knights, possessed of a rabid fan base despite never having made the finals, won just two games in 2013. The Sydney Bears remained competitive for the majority of the season, but their crowds were moderate and they ended up with only seven wins.
The consensus is that the standard of play in the league has improved by 10 per cent a year since 2010, and clubs are becoming more ‘professional’ about their import selection, training, preparation and road trips. Australian hockey fans have always said that once decent venues were built and a decent league put in place, Australians would fall in love with hockey. Pace, skill under pressure, big hits – hockey had everything Australians love in their passionately followed football codes.
Crowd numbers outstripped the wildest hopes of hockey officials from the day the Icehouse opened, and rates of interest in adult hockey programs skyrocketed in Melbourne. The sport faces big issues, as you will see, but its fragile national league is thriving as never before.
This book is the story of the 2014 AIHL season, and the sights and sounds I found at its quirky outposts. It features the Melbourne clubs more strongly than any others because my interstate journeys ended up giving me greater insights into the teams I travelled with than those I visited, Melbourne Ice and the Melbourne Mustangs graciously having offered me unfettered access on three trips each. I have tried to reveal key voices from each club, but like the players, coaches and officials I spoke to, I had a day job throughout this project, so inevitably this work features more insights from the two Melbourne rivals.
My observations are abetted by the acumen of two expert and friendly guides: Melbourne Ice’s Canadian import Matt Armstrong, and Melbourne Mustangs’ American import Pat O’Kane.
This book does not claim to be the definitive account of the AIHL or of hockey in Australia, but I believe I have caught the league, and Australian hockey, at a fascinating point in their history. I hope that you enjoy reading this chronicle as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it, for this hockey enclave is generous, creative, passionate and fun-loving, and it deserves celebration.
