ADAMSON, Alan

BORN 29TH APRIL 1932, Alan Adamson played 184 games for the Pirates in the Victorian league between 1965 and 1980, plus 20 for the Monarchs in 1978. He was alternate captain of the reserve grade coached by Olympian Ivo Vesely in 1969 and played the Adelaide trip for the Blue Line tournament in 1970 which the Pirates won.

He was part of the A-grade premiership at Ringwood in 1976, the first in the 28-year history of the club. The Crossbones finished third on the ladder in the 18-match regular season, but they caught fire in the finals. After six gruelling preliminary matches, they defeated Hakoah 5-4, 3-1 in the grand final. The Pirates won again in 1978 and 1985.

Adamson continued as an administrator and coach with the Pirates and Hakoah for a few years. The clubs had to merge in 1987 after all the rinks closed except Oakleigh. He was the state junior vice president in 1983 and returned in 1988 for nine years straight. He was often involved in promotion of the Goodall Cup interstate series and he managed the Australian National Youth Team for the inaugural Asian Oceanic Ice Hockey Championships in Japan, March 23-30, 1984. He was a team liaison person when the event was run in Bendigo in 1988. [3]

In 1990 he managed the second ice hockey tour of New Zealand during the presidency of Charlie Grandy when Radio 3MMM covered association games, and Victoria earned a share of its gate revenue.

In 1993, the state association honoured Adamson with Life Membership. His state presidency in 1995 and 96 completed ten years of service during the time Victoria subsisted on an undersized rink at Oakleigh and in regional Bendigo, where player development camps continued.

Under Adamson’s brief presidency, twenty-one coaches attended Level 1 coaching schools led by Dan Reynolds. Fourteen Victorian coaches and six from South Australia attended Level 2 clinics conducted by Marc Bowles from Canada. An influx of inline hockey players drove up membership from 352 the previous season to 435 (24%).

Victoria did not celebrate much in those years, except for successive national titles won by a new wave of Under-15 Juniors, setting up an enduring dominance of the Under-18 national championships for the Tange Trophy. Over twenty teams in the summer comp continued to grow, but interest had waned in the Goodall Cup open interstate competition. The following season the state entered the women’s national championship for the first time, the Joan McKowen Trophy.

In 2001, the national association made Alan Adamson a Life Member. The Melbourne Nite Owls veteran still mentors, motivates and helps out on the bench of the Footscray Pirates in the local summer comp. He has contributed sixty years to local and state ice hockey, particularly with the Pirates club and the state juniors.