Ice hockey in Australia

Ice hockey in Australia is only a moderately popular sport, with low participation and spectator attendance figures when compared with many other sports played in the country.

However, the establishment of the semi-professional Australian Ice Hockey League (abbreviated as AIHL) in 2000 (in place of the collapsed former state-based national competition) has seen an increase in popularity for the sport, a trend which continued in 2012 with the successful expansion of the league into Western Australia with the inclusion of Perth-based side Perth Thunder and the introduction of a two-conference competition.

The AIHL is the top-level ice hockey league in Australia, and the largest league in the Southern Hemisphere. The Australian Women's Ice Hockey League (AWIHL) is the top-level women's competition and was formed in 2005.

Ice hockey in Australia is governed nationally by the Australian Ice Hockey Federation (currently trading as Ice Hockey Australia), formed in 1923 as the Australian Ice Hockey Association. Australia is an active full-member of the International Ice Hockey Federation having been admitted to the federation in 1938.

As of 2012 there are approximately 3,200 registered ice hockey players in Australia.

The dawn of ice sports in Australia
Interest in building ice skating rinks in Australia can be dated back to the 19th century, where the first plans to build an ice rink in East Melbourne were announced in 1888 by Australia's first ice rink syndicate.

In fact, the process of mechanical refrigeration had it's beginnings in Australia with the first mechanical ice making machine beginning operation in 1851 on the banks of the Barwon River at Rocky Point in Geelong, Victoria. It was here in Geelong, Victoria that Scottish-born engineer, James Harrison would realise his invention of the refrigeration process, which would soon spread across the world. By 1856 Harrison would travel back to London to patent his process and his apparatus. By 1859 he founded the Victorian Ice Works on Franklin Street in Melbourne and then Sydney Ice Co. in 1860. Harrison then saw it would be of great benefit to Australia to be able to trade Australian meat products with Europe and began work on creating refrigerated shipping to enable this. In 1873, the first shipment of 20 tons of Australian beef and mutton to London via the ship Norfolk using his refrigeration methods. This revolutionised Australian trade with the rest of the world and impacted the large natural ice industry but his technology led to the invention of the mechanically frozen indoor ice skating rink.

Italian-born British veterinarian and inventor, John Gamgee was introduced to and became fascinated by Harrison's process of refrigeration during a trip to the United States of America to look at Texas fever in cattle. Gamgee would go on to discover the process for mechanically frozen ice rinks while attempting to develop a way to freeze meat imported from Australia. Gamgee would return to London to patent these methods in 1870 and would be the developer for the worlds first mechanically refrigerated indoor ice rink, which opened under a tent in Chelsea, London on January 7th, 1876. Three more rinks would be opened but would close by 1878. Between this time, five McGill University students in Montreal, Canada would codify 7 rules for the game of ice hockey. The year of 1879 would see the first successful refrigerated meat shipment leave Melbourne and Sydney on the ship Strathleven, an Australian historic breakthrough in commercial refrigeration, where the meat was sold in London. In the same year an ice skating rink in Southport, the Southport Glaciarium, would be built nearby Liverpool where Lord Stanley was a member of parliament. This rink would remain for ten years, closing in 1889 but these early rinks would lead to the dawn of mechanically frozen ice skating rinks being built around the world previously relying on naturally formed ice.

In 1888 a prospectus was announced to build an indoor ice skating rink in East Melbourne, it would be a multi-level building with an ice skating rink and cold stores, on the first floor above would be a roller skating rink. The venue would have frontage on both Gipps Street and Grey Street and both rink sizes would be 18.29m x 82.30m in size. The building would not go ahead and Australia would have to wait a little longer before the first indoor ice skating rink would be built here.

Henry Newman Reid's uncle, Robert Reid was an Australian Minister of Defence and Minister of Health in the James Patterson government, he was first elected in 1892. By 1893 the Scottish-born Robert Reid was promoting trade in refrigerated shipping in Britain and in North America. His lectures would see him travel to Vancouver, Canada and to Toronto, Canada. Ice skating rinks would continue to be built in places such as Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Washington, New York in the USA, Ottawa, Canada and two in London, one of which was the famed Prince's Skating Club.

English-born Henry Newman Reid was a proficient refrigeration engineer who was living in Melbourne, he was a member of the London Society of Engineers. He was aware of these mechanically refrigerated ice skating rink developments in North America and Europe and made comment about them. At the time Henry Newman Reid was the general manager for Adelaide Ice and Cold Storage Company located in Light Square Adelaide. Reid saw the opportunity to avoid the cost associated with building a new purpose-built facility with cooling plant through making use of the already existing AISCC ice works in Light Square, Adelaide and a nearby existing large building originally built as the Adelaide Cyclorama. The cost of the project could be minimised through connecting the ice works cooling plant to a new network of piping for the proposed ice floor in the Cyclorama building and a budget for redecorating the Cyclorama to re purpose the building for a new ice skating venue. The challenge would be to run the new piping under public roads and lanes as the Cyclorama building at 89 Hindley Street was approximately 700 meters down the road.

After meeting obstacles with permits during his initial attempt to do so in 1903, a prospectus for the acquisition for the Cyclorama building at 89 Hindley Street was announced on June 1st, 1904. On the evening of September 6th, 1904 the Adelaide Glaciarium would open and become the first ice rink built in Australia. Not only was the Adelaide Glaciarium the first mechanically frozen ice skating rink to be built in the Southern hemisphere, it was also a feat of engineering as it was the first ice skating rink in the world where the cooling plant was in a different location to the ice skating rink.

It was here in the Adelaide Glaciarium, with the modern day address of 91 Hindley Street in Adelaide, that would become the cradle of Australian ice sports; relying on the refrigeration technology that changed the world, appearing for the first time on the banks of the Barwon River at Rocky Point in Geelong, Victoria invented by James Harrison 53 years before.

Ice Polo: Before Ice Hockey
The beginnings of ice sports in Australia are traced back to the evening of Wednesday October 12, 1904 during a carnival held at the Adelaide Glaciarium, the first ice rink built in Australia.

This important location for Australian ice sports began as a Cyclorama, which opened on Friday 28 November 1890 at 89 Hindley Street, Adelaide. On the evening of Tuesday September 6, 1904, the building was reopened after being remodeled by a new group called the Ice Palace Skating Company, owned by H. Newman Reid and referred to as the Glaciarium or Ice Palace Skating Rink.

On the evening of Wednesday October 12, 1904 a match for what was called "hockey on the ice" was held during the carnival at the Adelaide Glaciarium. This game was not ice hockey, it was an adaption of roller polo to the ice using ice skates instead of roller skates.

At the time this version of roller polo adapted to the ice was being played in Adelaide, ice hockey was already a well established sport and had been codified for almost 30 years. Though it was being called "hockey on the ice", it was not ice hockey.

The First Ice Hockey Match
The beginnings of ice sports in Australia can be linked to the Glaciarium in Adelaide but the birthplace of ice hockey in Australia was in Melbourne, Victoria and was the first time ice hockey had been played. Organised games of ice hockey in Australia began with the opening of the Melbourne Glaciarium on the afternoon of June 9, 1906, at 16 City Road, South Melbourne Victoria.

The first recorded organised game of ice hockey in Australia was on Tuesday July 17, 1906 and was between a Victorian representative team and the American sailors from the visiting American Warship the USS Baltimore. This game was held in the Melbourne Glaciarium, the Australian team were dressed in all white and the team from USS Baltimore wore white shirts with a large upper case black B on the front and center of the chest and grey trousers. The skill level of the Australians was not seen to be up to the level of the Americans but the game was hard fought and result of the game was a 1-1 tie.

In 1909 state teams from Victoria and New South Wales first contested the Goodall Cup, which has since served continuously as the trophy awarded to the winners of the annual national competition (with hiatuses for the two World Wars, the closure of the Sydney Glaciarium in the late 1950s and for a single year in 1993), thus making the Goodall Cup the third-oldest still awarded ice hockey trophy in the world, and the oldest outside of Canada.

Organisation
Ice Hockey Australia has seven state and territory-based affiliate associations across Australia which are in turn responsible for the organisation of the sport at the state and territory level.

International competition
Australia's performance in international competition has been ordinary, qualifying for the Winter Olympic Games only once in 1960. As of 2012 the men's national team is ranked 32nd in the International Ice Hockey Federation's rankings; the women's national team is ranked 24th. 2012 saw the inaugural Trans-Tasman Champions League games between the previous season's two top-ranked sides from both the Australian Ice Hockey League and the New Zealand Ice Hockey League.

The Australian Ice Hockey League
The Australian Ice Hockey League was formed in 2000. From 2000-2001 the Sydney Bears, Adelaide Avalanche and Canberra Knights played round robins. Avalanche won the 2000 and 2001 AIHL Cup.

In 2002 the addition of Melbourne Ice, West Sydney Ice Dogs and the Newcastle North Stars made the league more purposeful.

The Bears won in 2002, the North Stars in 2003 and the Ice Dogs in 2004 with the introduction of a new finals method. The top four would play in sudden death semi-finals and then the two winners would play for the AIHL Championship. This has remained unchanged.

2005 saw the introduction of two new teams: The Central Coast Rhinos and the Brisbane Bluetongues. The North Stars took the cup in 2005.

In 2008 Adelaide Avalanche changed to the Adelaide Adrenaline because of managing purposes. Newcastle won 2006, the Bears in 2007 and the Stars again in 2008.

2009 saw the Bluetingues changing to the Gold Coast Blue Tongues and the Rhinos withdrawing the competition because of AIHL's licensing changes. 2009's cup was taken by the Adrenaline and 2010 was taken by the Ice in Melbourne's new Olympic Training Facility in Melbourne's Docklands.

In 2011 the Mustangs Ice Hockey Club joined the league making it an eight teamed competition. Their home rink is also at the Docklands.

The Perth Thunder joined the AIHL at the start of 2012 as the ninth team.