Over the next 2 days the top 4 teams will fight it out to discover who will be the AIHL Champion for 2010. After a grueling regular season only the Sydney Bears, Adelaide Adrenaline, Newcastle North Stars and finals host Melbourne Ice remain in the competition. These 4 teams each play their own style of hockey and all of them want to raise the cup as much as the next. But, who will be strong enough to make it? Last seasons winners, the Adrenaline are looking to win back-to-back championships. The Newcastle North Stars have a deadly offensive lineup including Brian Bales and Peter Cartright who surpassed last seasons record set by Brad Smulders of the Blue Tongues. The Sydney Bears have been looked on as the underdogs, but have a well balanced team that is dangerous to underestimate. Lastly, the Melbourne Ice, who have a new rink, new attitude and a serious home-ice advantage.
As a fan of the sport of hockey, it’s hard not wanting to throw support behind one of these 4 teams during the finals. I personally would love to see the Bears get up over the other teams, but a first round match against the Ice could prove a mighty challenge. The Ice losing in the semi would be a great thing to see however. The North Stars / Adrenaline matchup will be a good one as we see great offense meet great defense. If the Adrenaline can shut down Bales and Cartright, I think they could take the win.
Game 1 is this afternoon with the 2nd semi Saturday night at 7:15pm. The Final is Sunday afternoon.
With just 4 games left in the regular season for our Blue Tongues, and all 4 of them against the Newcastle Northstars, the Tongues have just one thing on their mind… turn out the lights on the boys from Twinkletown!
Matches between the Northstars and Blue Tongues has always been some of the best hockey to watch, and these last few games shall be no different. The Northstars bring with them a strong offensive lineup and solid netminding from Matt Ezzy (product of Gold Coast Ice Hockey, btw). The Blue Tongues bring size, grit and a strong offensive scoring punch from imports Mike McRae and Dallas Costanzo. This season the Blue Tongues have a new weapon however. One that could play a huge role in these final 4 games; Reese Kalleitner. Reese has been solid in all his games played this season, and looks to continue his domination between the pipes this weekend.
Going into this weekends games, the Northstars have just 8 regulation wins, but have managed to pull off a whopping 7 shootout victories, ensuring their place in the standings with 39 points! The Blue Tongues have 9 wins and 1 shootout victory and currently sit tied for 4th spot with 30 points. While the Stars have put up more goals this season, the goals against for both teams (62 & 66 respectively) are both in the top 3 in the league.
The current standings are:
| TEAM | GP | W | L | OTW | OTL | D | PTS | GF | AVG | GA | AVG | PCT | L10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newcastle North Stars | 18 | 8 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 39 | 85 | 4.70 | 62 | 3.40 | 0.722 | 7-1-0-1-0 |
| Melbourne Ice | 18 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 35 | 90 | 5.00 | 52 | 2.90 | 0.648 | 4-4-0-0-0 |
| Adelaide Adrenaline | 20 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 32 | 86 | 4.30 | 75 | 3.80 | 0.533 | 3-2-0-2-0 |
| Gold Coast Blue Tongues | 18 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 30 | 69 | 3.80 | 66 | 3.70 | 0.556 | 4-4-0-1-0 |
| Sydney Bears | 19 | 9 | 7 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 30 | 55 | 2.90 | 77 | 4.10 | 0.526 | 5-4-0-1-0 |
| Canberra Knights | 18 | 5 | 11 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 17 | 68 | 3.80 | 83 | 4.60 | 0.315 | 2-6-0-2-0 |
| Sydney Ice Dogs | 19 | 3 | 13 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 12 | 55 | 2.90 | 93 | 4.90 | 0.211 | 2-7-0-1-0 |
We’ve reached that part of the season we love to hate. The skates are put away, the schedule is complete and the champion has been crowned; the 2009 AIHL season is over.
Adelaide Adrenaline, AIHL Champions
Congratulations to the Adelaide Adrenaline who played some of the best hockey this fan has seen in recent times, dominating the Melbourne Ice 6-1 in their semi-final and defeating the defending champions, Newcastle North Stars in a 3-2 overtime victory on Sunday to secure the championship.
With IHA declaring the revered Goodall Cup was going back to a state competition, the AIHL introduced a new trophy which AIHL teams will now play for. The trophy was on display during the finals and handed to Adrenaline Greg Oddy as the captain of the victorious Adelaide Adrenaline.
The Gold Coast Blue Tongues made their first ever finals appearance to the roar of a dedicated Tongues fan base. Players later expressed that the Blue Tongues fans, who numbered less than 20 out-screamed the packed North Stars crowd. Keeping even through 2 periods, the Blue Tongues lost to the Newcastle North Stars 5-3 in their semi-final matchup.
The Melbourne Ice team, who were defeated 6-1 by the Adrenaline in semi-final #1 should take away many positive things from this season, one in which saw them rebuilding with youth and inexperience. Greg Oddy and the boys did fantastic to get them to the playoffs.
Brad Smulders, AIHL MVP
Brad Smuldes was awarded the AIHL regular season MVP award. He broke the AIHL scoring record, putting up 33 goals, 43 assists for 76 points, beating the old record by 7 points.
Cass Delsar of the Adelaide Adrenaline was awarded the playoff MVP, for what we can tell, deflecting a puck and scoring the overtime game winner agains the North Stars. This has sparked a discussion as to whether scoring “that” goal is deserving of the playoff MVP. We feel Greg Oddy or Thilthorpe would have been more deserving personally.
Mike Crowhurst of Slapshot.com.au has posted that DVDs of the finals games (all 3 of them) are available for purchase via their website: http://www.slapshot.com.au. According to Mike, they had 300 people tuning in to watch the games! A huge thanks to Mike, Mischa and the rest of the Slapshot boys for making the games available to the world.
The AIHL Trophy
The AIHL off-season is a long one, stretching through til April/May next year. Over the next 7 months teams will work on securing new imports, work on training the local guys and prepare for another AIHL season. The AIHL is notorious for it’s rumour mill, so here are few to whet your appetite.
According to people in the know, the talk around the league is that there could be new teams in the AIHL next season. Nobody has been able to confirm anything as yet, however 3 names keep popping up; Melbourne, Central Coast and Brisbane. Melbourne have their new ice arena next season, making room for another team down there. The Central Coast has the Rhinos, although I find it hard to believe they would be back if the same owner is involved. Brisbane used to have the Blue Tongues, so has the ability and fan base to hold a team.
According to sources who we believe had one too many, Matt Ezzy’s days in Newcastle are over, and he could be on the move to a new team. This rumour was also popular this time last year, so take it as you will. I sincerely hope he does not move to the Gold Coast unless he welcomes the taste of humble pie, as there is zero chance fans up there will worship him as the Newcastle crowd do.
Loads of rumours of returning import players, including 1 from the Blue Tongues, 1 from Newcastle and 1 from the Adrenaline.
The AIHL finals last weekend hosted some of the most exciting hockey many fans have seen, not to mention the sellout crowd to see the Gold Coast Blue Tongues make their first ever appearance in the AIHL finals. The Blue Tongues lost to the North Stars, who in turn lost to the 2009 AIHL Champions, the Adelaide Adrenaline in what was fast paced, end-to-end hockey.
The weekend however was not without controversy. Going into the weekend, Blue Tongues fans were aware that the veteran Milan Novysedlak would be starting in net, a move which had fans and opponents alike wondering “WTF?”. It turned out, this sentiment was not had by only Tongues fans.
- Fans feel Milan robbed Fiveash out of his goalie spot
Saturday evening during the first intermission between the Blue Tongues and North Stars I had a number of North Stars fans ask why the Blue Tongues regular season starter, Luke Fiveash, was not in net. We could only shrug of course, because that question is one we’d like to know the answer to also.
It must be said that Milan played a solid game in net on Saturday, and this blog post is not designed to take anything away from him or his game, merely to beg the question as to why he got the nod over Luke Fiveash.
According to the AIHL website, Luke Fiveash played 14 games this season (7W, 6L + 1 game where we lack correct stat data), averaging just 2.97 goals against and putting up an 88.86% save percent. He had the best GAA of all starting netminders (those who played 50% or more of their teams games). His save percent was equal to that of Newcastles Matt Ezzy. Luke also outplayed Matt Ezzy in 2 games earlier this season on the gold coast, only to have the defense let him down resulting in 2 shootout losses.
Compare this to Milan, who played 4 regular season games (3W, 1L), having missed the majority of the season due to a bad injury. His first game back after that injury was a bad 9-3 loss to the Melbourne Ice just 2 weeks ago.
OneNorth Stars fan commented that they were shocked that the Blue Tongues would play Milan when Luke was not only ready to play, but had already proven his ability to take on the North Stars. I had similar comments come from Ice, Ice Dogs, Bears and Adrenaline fans, as well as 2 business owners in the Newcastle region.
Since the game, there are rumours floating around that Milan may be announcing his retirement. Could this be connected to why he started? I don’t know. I feel for Luke. He’s a solid netminder who is a solid team guy, always doing what’s asked of him and never complaining. He helped carry the team to the playoffs, fans would have liked to see him where we believe he belongs; between the pipes.
The first home game of the season was at Bundall tonight, with the Tongues taking on the reigning champs, Newcastle North Stars, and the Gold Coast showed up in style. It was a packed rink that were able to watch the boys first game at home, and what a game to start the season off with! Newcastle is always a hard game to play. Not only do they always front a talented, fast and gelled team, but they’re physical and accurate to boot. With Australia’s leading local goaltender, Matt Ezy between the pipes, and players like Rob Starke and Sean Oultram out front, you expect them to be a tough team. Last weekend, the BTs lost two games in a row to the Stars, so we were hoping our boys would be able to get a little revenge tonight.
They came out wearing black armbands, in honour of Davey Upton’s grandmother who passed away this past week. That was testamount to the respect this year’s team have for each other. Says a lot about our locker room.
Luke Fiveash got the start between the pipes, having been backup in Newcastle for the roadtrip’s both games, and boy is there a height difference between Fiveash and Ezy. It really seemed like a David and Goliath battle for the goaltenders. Still, Luke did a fantastic job in the first period. The game was hard hitting, with not just our imports (Andre Selander, Brad Smulders and Henrik Ivarsson) giving some massive checks to knock the Stars off the puck, but some fantastic physical play from local boys like Dave Upton, Ben Spillane and Ross Howell. Newcastle gave back as much as they got, and it really did become a battle for the puck through the entire 45 minutes. The North Stars were the first to score 24 seconds left in the first, when Steve Kaye got one past Fiveash.
The second period of the game is where the real battle began. The BTs scored 19 seconds into the second period, with Brad Smulders getting past Matt Ezzy. Newcastle hit back quickly, 63 seconds later with their second goal of the night when Adam Kimbley scored on a lucky shot where the puck hit just under the top bar of the goal before bouncing out again. Two minutes later, Trevor Walsh, Adelaide’s fan favourite and the most recent signing for the BTs, scored his first in a Tongues uniform with a beautiful triple deke on Matt Ezy, completely outplaying him to take a top shelf goal to the sound of the screaming fans in jubilation.
Five minutes left in the second saw the game’s first fight, with Ben Morrison (Newcastle) and Ben Spillane (Gold Coast) dropping the gloves and battling it out. Newcastle’s import, and assistant captain, John Halverson came in as the third man, creating a two on one situation that the refs then tried to break up. With all three players given match penalties, they were out of the game for the night. And at 2 all, that’s where the score stayed until the end of the third period.
While the score stayed at 2-2, I must here make mention of a fantastic penalty kill that happened with 3.25 left in the game. Walsh was sent to the box for Roughing, giving the Stars a 4 on 5 powerplay. 30 seconds later, import Tino Sandhu was send to the penalty box for tripping, giving the North Stars a 5-on-3 powerplay for a whole minute. This is a huge amount of time to be on a penalty kill. A PK will wear players out faster than regular play because the players on the ice have to make up for the missing man. In a 5 on 3? More than likely your team will get scored on.
Ours didn’t. And that’s thanks to Brad Smulders, Henrik Ivarsson and Andre Selander who were impenetrable to the Stars attack. With about 45 seconds of the 60 they were out there alone, the puck was in the BT’s zone, but our players did everything they could to check, battle, intercept, block and clear the puck. They protected Fiveash as if he were the Stanley Cup himself, and the Stars wanted to steal him. It was impressive to watch, and a very exciting moment in the game.
Neither team scored in the third, so to a shootout we went. As much as I have faith in Luke Fiveash when he’s between the pipes, and after the game tonight I really do have faith in his ability to get the job done, I have to admit that with two minutes left in the game, I said to my partner in crime, “If this goes to a shootout, we’ll lose.”
I don’t know if I’m clairvoyant, but I sincerely doubt it. It’s more just experience of watching Matt Ezy in a shootout from years past. He may not be my favourite player in the league – not by a long shot (his ego is far too big for that, I’m surprised he can fit his helmet over it!) – but he is impressive in a one on one situation. Unfornately, only Brad Smulders lifted the puck above Ezy’s pads, which he stacks on a regular basis, while Eric Lajunesse and Casey Minson scored on Fiveash, giving Newcastle the 3-2 win.
The BTs do get a point for a shootout loss, however, which is a consolation. Still, our boys will be fired up to win against Newcastle tomorrow night.
