Poling, Bruce R

BORN FEBRUARY 5TH 1967, in Oakville in the suburbs of southern Ontario in Canada. He grew-up in the Trail area in BC playing minor hockey and then junior hockey for the Beaver Valley Nitehawks. On a travel holiday in 1986 he stopped in Adelaide and shortly after that we was sponsored to stay and play with the local Blackhawks Ice Hockey Club. He was Most Valuable A-grade Player three years running, 1989 to 1991, then once again in 1993. He won the South Australian league premiership in 1994-95. He represented South Australia in nine successive interstate tournaments, 1986 to 1995, and won four Goodall Cups — 1987, 1990, 1991 and 1995. He was selected to play for Australia in 1996 but did not tour due to ITC clearance problems.

He returned to Canada in 1995 with his wife Samantha, and played Senior Commercial league for 3 years. He moved to Vernon in 2003 and played two seasons in The Men’s Labatts League (later Boston Pizza League), a non-contact competitive league. He returned to Australia in 2008 and joined the Melbourne Nite Owls (OiHAN) where he was a goalie (and occasional left wing) and played on many championship teams in the Over-35s and 45s divisions from 2008 to 2015.

In 2011, he formed Point Blank Goalie (PBG) to coach and service the needs of Australian ice hockey goaltenders. Its goal is "to help coach the first Aussie-born starting goalie in the NHL". He was also goalie coach of the Melbourne Ice women's team for 3 years. In 2014 he went into the IHV draft for the first time to play competitive again and was drafted by the Melbourne Jets as first pick in first round at age 47. He went on to win Best Goalie for his next two seasons in senior C-grade. He played in the Canada-USA Pro game series in Melbourne in 2015 and 2016, where he was back-up to Garret Sparks and Ben Scrivens in front of 15,000 spectators.

Privately, he has operated a kitchen joinery business for many years and since 2003 he has been a professional Business Coach to small business with "Strive to Thrive". In 2016, he was focused on growing the reach of Point Blank Goalie in association with the goalie community and the state association.