Price, Kevin

BORN JUNE 27TH, 1959, at Canterbury Hospital in Sydney, he started skating at 8 or 9 and, like many in his generation, practiced figures and speed skating before he found his way into ice hockey at the Prince Alfred Park rink. Within 2 years, he moved from development to the A-grade with Noel Taylor and Mark Stephenson at the new Canterbury United club, where he was knocked-out cold in the first game.

In the 1970s he played for the Canterbury Viscounts (sponsored by Viscount caravans), the Winfield (Glebe) Lions, and the Finn Eagles, who were "99 percent" composed of Finns. In 1979, he played for the Newcastle All-Stars against the Australian National Senior Team and in Dick Mann's breakaway league at Newcastle. The Lions continued their dominance of the 5-team NSW league during those years, but they were soon to merge with Canterbury, and St George with the Sydney Icemen.

He joined the City of Sydney All-Stars in the new National Ice Hockey League in 1980, coached by Gordon Bettes, managed by John Kendall-Baker and trained by Sub Majsay. They won the inaugural NIHL season from the Burley-operated Iceland at Prince Alfred Park. Noel Taylor, Michael Solomon and he were the only Australians in the line-up. Involved with League promotions on the Mike Walsh Show and elsewhere, he continued with the Club when they became the Sydney Icemen and played in the live-televised Slapshot series.

Returning to Canterbury after the Finn Eagles, he represented his state in both the Brown Trophy and the Goodall Cup, winning the 1979 Brown and the 1983 Goodall. His family could not afford the cost of representing Australia overseas, but he did represent his country against a visiting Canadian Navy team.

Fully accredited, he coached boys teams at Blacktown and was one of the Canterbury United players who supported Wendy Ovenden and Annette Davis, the first Sydney girls to play when women's ice hockey resumed at Canterbury in the the early-80s. He continued coaching boys and girls teams at Canterbury for over 30 years, right until the present time. He ran an inline hockey school at Skate Central at Gosford from the late-1990s, coached state inline hockey teams and represented Australia against Kuwait and New Zealand in the Asian Oceanic tournaments.

Retiring from playing when he married in the early 1990s, he moved to the Central Coast and worked as General Manager of the Erina Ice Rink. He helped set up the Cyclones Ice hockey Club on behalf of the rink, with Craig Air and Alan Harvey, and a successful Development Academy attended by up to one hundred youngsters at a time. He coached the Midgets (U15), the Erina Cyclones and the women's Cyclones to state premierships.

A state women's team coach in national competition from around 2005, he led the NSW women to victory in the 2010 Joan McKowen Trophy. His own game resumed with the Central Coast Brewers and he still plays old-timers hockey with the Stiff Breeze, or "Stiffys", an Over-35 masters team with a name derived from the local Cyclones. His son James and daughter Karkla both played hockey for the Cyclones. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Kevin Price's ice hockey career.