HOTTEST SHOW ON ICE

Ron Reed Herald Sun April 09, 2011



Nathan Walker is airborne after colliding with his opponent against Mexico. Picture: Michael Klein Herald Sun
BRUISED and battered, Joey Hughes is waist-deep in a wheelie bin full of ice, a doctor trying to stop the blood running down his chin after being whacked in the face by a man with a big stick. It is the end of another tough night at the office for Melbourne's best and most enthusiastic ice hockey player. But he is laughing through the pain, perhaps because he had been earnestly assuring me earlier that violence was going out of fashion in this highly entertaining sport. He wishes, perhaps.

Hughes, 26, had just contributed a goal and a valuable assist to Australia's 5-3 win over Belgium in a pulsating match that had a full house of nearly 1500 applauding wildly. He had top-scored with four in the 11-1 trashing of Mexico two nights earlier, making Joey the jet the hottest thing on ice this week. This leaves the Mighty Roos as the only undefeated team in the only international ice hockey tournament ever played in Melbourne. They should take care of New Zealand tonight and then the title - for group A of the second division of the world championships - is likely to be decided against the favourite, Serbia, tomorrow night. Even if it is cold out there on the skating rink of the impressive new winter sports facility at Docklands, the Icehouse, that's not to be sneezed at.

Australia is ranked 34, with the opposition all in roughly the same bracket, which isn't bad for a sport that has never had much traction in Melbourne. To mainstream sports fans it's more or less invisible. There is next to no chance of making it back any time soon to the winter Olympics, even though the Icehouse has been built because skiers, skaters and snowboarders have proven the sunburnt country needs to be taken seriously. The Australian Olympic Committee's Mr Winter, Melbourne businessman and former ice hockey player Geoff Henke, harassed politicians and corporate supporters until the project was a reality. It is now the headquarters for the winter sports program.

But big-time ice hockey - a highly professional sport in the North American and European countries that embrace it - is still well out of reach. That's why a chance to perform on an international stage in front of a home crowd is a not-to-be-missed moment in the sun for players, officials and fans alike. The Henke Rink has been filled to capacity for both of Australia's matches. Australia has played ice hockey at the Olympics only once, at Squaw Valley, US, in 1960, and it was a painful experience in every way. The team for the first match against Czechoslovakia contained two political defectors, Ivo Veseley and Sdenak Tikal, and both were attacked maliciously by their former countrymen, who were all military personnel in their day jobs. The Czech team included Tikal's brother, who he hadn't seen for 10 years, but they were prevented from meeting off the ice and it didn't save him from heavy punishment on it.


 "They were classed as traitors," teammate Basil Hanson, 84, said this week, likening the mayhem to the infamous water polo match between Hungary and its invader, Russia, during the Melbourne Olympics four years earlier, where blood stained the water. "It wasn't a happy game. We were strictly amateurs and it opened our eyes," Hanson said. "It was a culture shock." The Czechs added insult to injury by winning 18-1, with the team's six matches returning a collective scoreline of 10-83. Australian is now coached by a former mid-level Czech player, Vladimir Rubes, who lives in Sydney. There has been minimal blood on the ice this week, although it hasn't been hard to see why the game enjoys a well-earned reputation as one of the world's most violent pastimes.

The constant body-on-body biffo, flailing sticks and shuddering thuds when a player crashes into the perspex walls every few seconds create a unique atmosphere, with teams almost always a man short because somebody is in the sin bin. The scoresheets make good reading for the fouls column alone: slashing, roughing, charging, elbowing, boarding, hooking, holding the stick and so on - whatever they all mean. Brawls are not uncommon but are decreasing. "There will always be some meathead who wants to hurt someone because he's embarrassed or frustrated, but the league will suspend you so it's a bit pointless," Hughes says.

Yes, it's rough-house - but it's also furiously fast and athletic, so physically demanding that players stay on the ice for only a couple of minutes at a time. The roller-coaster Belgian game was a superb spectacle, in doubt until the final few seconds, the pressure intense - great spectator sport by any standards. It would almost certainly be more popular than it is in Melbourne if it was better exposed, but the national league - won last year by Melbourne Ice - has no media profile. It should.

Hughes became hooked at 11 after watching the movie The Mighty Ducks and his parents took the advice of a Canadian coach to send him, at just 13, and his brother Vincent to that country for a talent test. "Mum thought I'd come back with my tail between my legs, hockey out of my system," he said. Instead, he proved good enough to spend more than a decade as a lower-level professional in Canada and the US, while studying administration, marketing and coaching. Now he's set up an ice hockey shop and school in Oakleigh, where he trains kids. Next Level Hockey Australia, as he calls it, is a business, but money isn't the main motivation. "My core mission is to promote the sport," he says.

This week he has been his own best advertisement.

AUSTRALIA EDGE CLOSER TO PROMISED LAND
Trevor Allen

Australia took one giant leap closer to promotion with a hard-fought 5-3 win of Belgium, in front of a packed Melbourne Medibank Icehouse crowd last night.

Australia now sit atop the IIHF Division 2 Group A standings, with a maximum nine points from three games, while Serbia and Belgium are equal second with six points each.

In a game of shifting momentum, Australia had five goals from five different players, as Liam Webster, Team Captain Greg Oddy, Nathan Walker and Joseph Hughes all scored. Davey Upton sealed the game with an empty netter in the final seconds to seal the win.

Australia’s goaltender, Matt Ezzy had an impressive night allowing just three goals on 33 shots. Kristof van Looy, Byan Kolodziejcyk and Ben Vercammen found the net for Belgium, while goaltender, Bjorn Steijlen made 40 saves. Australian coach Vladimir Rubes praised his team’s all-round performance from everyone in the lineup.

“It was a great team effort. Everyone contributed and we did a good job on the power play.  We were the better team and we had good team pressure. We created chances and odd-man rushes,” said Rubes, who was noticeably relieved after Belgium’s third period fight-back.

“We looked a bit shaky at the end for a while. They are a good team and they showed that in beating Serbia.  We had our first two lines clicking and when our third line lifted, we were looking good and able to hold on.”

After a scoreless opening period, Australia was the first to break the deadlock with a power play tally in the second period. Good work along the boards by Oddy, fed Hughes at the point, whose initial shot was saved, but the rebound slotted home by Webster.

Just 41 seconds later, Australia made it 2-0. Walker’s fore-checking forced a turnover as Belgium attempted a breakout. He then made a centre pass to Vladan Stransky, whose partially blocked shot was followed up by Walker for the goal.
But Belgium hit back through van Looy, as he made a nifty backhand move to beat Ezzy, after receiving a long pass from Lorenzo Maas.

Willed on by the 1200-strong crowd, the Mighty Roos counterpunched again. Pressure behind the Belgian net by Stransky forced the puck free to Oddy, who made a wraparound move to beat Steijlen, giving Australia a precarious 3-1 lead after two periods.

The partisan crowd didn’t have to wait long for Australia to extend their lead, as Steijlen was again beaten on a wraparound goal, just 43 seconds into the final frame. Hughes scored his tournament-leading fifth goal after Chris Sekura forced the puck free behind the net.

Kolodziejcyk then scored to cut the lead back to two goals, after Australia failed to clear the trouble from in front of their own net. And Vercammen breathed new life into the Belgians, as his slap shot in full stride, beat Ezzy cleanly over his catching glove, making the score 4-3.  

In a frantic final minute, Upton had chance to seal the game on a breakaway, but was thwarted by Steijlen. The Belgians then pulled their net minder for the extra skater, but were unable to mount a sustained attack. Australia was able to clear the danger, allowing Upton to stuff the puck into the empty cage.
 Belgium coach Jozef Lejeune rued his team’s missed chances but commended Australia’s performance.

“Australia played a better game. The best team won. There’s no shame in losing to a team like that and I’m proud of my team,” he said. “Sometimes the puck bounces your way and sometimes it doesn’t. But we didn’t do a good job in some areas.  I saw guys hesitating going into the boards, and when you hesitate, you lose games.”


— Trevor Allen, Australian Sporting Post, April 7 2011

ROOS POWER PAST MEXICO IN HOME OPENER
Trevor Allen
Mighty Roos’ goaltender Matt Ezzy misplayed a shoot-in from the neutral zone by winger Alexander Gutierrez, and saw the puck bounce over his stick and into the net. The goal was the only blemish in an otherwise quiet night in goal for Ezzy, stopping 22 of 23 shots on goal. Despite the blowout, Australian Coach Vladimir Rubes said the game was not as easy as the scoreboard suggested. “The first game is never easy. It sets the pace and tempo for the whole tournament,” he said. “We had to work hard in the first period with the score 1-nil and our goalie made some key saves.”

After Manco’s opening goal, the Australians found it to breach the Mexican net, as Andres De la Garma made a number of stellar saves. But he was finally beaten again when Luke Thilthorpe picked up the puck in his own zone and made a long range diagonal pass to Stephenson up ice, who broke in alone and beat De la Garma up high. If anything, penalties were the Achilles heal of the Australians, as they racked up a massive 47 penalty minutes, including 27 by defenseman Andrew White. “We took a lot of penalties which meant we couldn’t contain the pressure,” said Rubes. “But once we got to 5-0, the floodgates opened.” De la Garma put up a gallant fight in the first period, stopping 12 of 13 shots on target.



But he finally succumbed to the pressure in the second period, allowing another four goals and was pulled in favour of Alfonso De Alba. In a man-of-the-match performance, Hughes completed his hat trick early in the third period, backhanding in a rebound from White’s long range shot. The pick of Hughes’ goals was his fourth, coming on a penalty shot. He broke in on a breakaway and was slashed by Luis David Gonzalez, giving the referee no choice but to award a penalty shot. Hughes gathered the puck at centre, faked a slap shot, feigned a forehand and switched the puck his backhand to slide it past the sprawling De Alba.

Mexican captain Fernando Ugarte was the standout performer for his side, but it was not enough to overpower the Australians, who outhit and outmuscled their opponents from the start.


— Trevor Allen, Australian Sporting Post, April 5 2011

Trevor Allen is the chief ice hockey analyst for Australian Sporting Post, a new sporting blog covering the biggest events across a range of sports. Allen's biography says he lives and breathes the sport of ice hockey. He is a lifelong Philadelphia Flyers fan and has followed the NHL since first being introduced to the sport as a small child. He began playing ice hockey in 2003 for the Sydney Bears Ice Hockey Club for six of the past eight years.

He is currently completing his Masters of Journalism at UTS and will be contributing regular NHL columns for the Australian Sporting Post, and hopes to offer exclusive insider news for the 2011 Australian Ice Hockey League season and the 2011 IIHF Division 2 World Championships in Melbourne.