By Players for the Players

The PHL and the soul of a new league

In 2022, players launched a new national men's ice hockey competition. The Pacific Hockey League was an immediate success with a player executive giving every player a voice and development paths to national and international team selection. It offered junior, referee, and coaching upskills programs co-developed with other bodies and delivered an improved product for fans. No Pay To Play, its subsidised teams received a percentage of revenue with honest, transparent and accountable governance.[55] The national association and its affiliate, the AIHL, reacted by doing things it had not done for a decade and more, in desperate moves to maintain power and control. They launched new teams into PHL markets they had long abandoned, threatened players they would not be selected for the National Team, and threatened to disaffiliate officials. Who will forget the fantastic hypocrisy of preaching the values of families and communities while launching a direct assault on them with less choice, less competition and lower participation?

Brisbane Rampage v Adelaide Avalanche. Acacia Ridge, Brisbane, 2022.

"I WANT TO TELL TWO STORIES highlighting what this league was about," says Joe Mayer, a former AIHL ice hockey official. "People laugh about ‘By Players for the Players', but it was the League ethos. Everything was done collaboratively; the Department of Player Safety was formed each time with an independent director, an independent Players Association representative and myself as Referee In Chief. Nothing was done without the players' involvement, input, and support."[1] The Joe Mayer visage is almost as familiar as zebra stripes in Australian hockey. The man who officiated his hundredth game in the Australian Ice Hockey League in 2019 started as a Linesman and progressed to Referee in 2013. He was state Referee-In-Chief for almost eight years, an officiating team mainstay in Sydney.

"During Game One of the PHL final series," begins Mayer, "a goal was missed quickly out off the back bar. All four officials did not see it. However, on the coverage, it was clear it was a goal. Luckily, it did not impact the game result. The next day, a group met at Ice HQ, including three directors, two players and four officials. It was unanimously decided to implement a goal-line video review for the remaining two games. After a no-goal call on the ice in game two, the fifth official called the two on-ice referees to the box. The footage was reviewed, and with one hundred per cent certainty, the on-ice call of no goal was upheld."[1]

The League official shared his life with the national body for almost nine years, including two AIHL Finals. He recommended a new officiating structure to replace the Referee In Chief role after attending an IIHF symposium.[1, 56] This model suited a volunteer sport with limited time and resources, and Miranda Ransome's administration implemented it.

Australia's first female national president resigned in late November 2020,[56] and Grove Bennett replaced her.[79] Soon after, AIHL Commissioner David Turik also resigned, "confidentially". According to Mayer, the new national board set about undoing progress under Ransome's stewardship, reinstating the Referee In Chief role, occupant and all.[1]

It is no small burden to possess something as valuable as patience. It meant this man from London schools who works in the gaming industry could survive in the volunteer world of a minor sport whether he liked it or not. When political scandal engulfed Bennett,[1, 61, 79] it wasn't hockey that forced Mayer's hand. It was the highly regulated industry in which he worked.

Two-and-a-half years into the National Officiating Performance Manager role Joe Mayer resigned. A short while later the new Pacific Hockey League offered him the position of Referee In Chief.[1]



IIN 2009, DAYNE DAVIS, a 23-year-old engineering graduate, quit a job and headed to Australia to look around. He ended up in the net for the Sydney Bears in the Australian Ice Hockey League. Only two locals, Matt Ezzy and Olivier Martin, had save percentages in the nineties then, and no overseas goalie had yet broken through. Earlier in the year, two hours further up the Expressway in Newcastle, China's goaltender Yang Yu let in one of 32 Mighty Roos' shots at the Division II World Championships. Down the other end, Ezzy made the lead hold-up, stopping all 36 shots he faced to win the gold.

"Ice Hockey Australia hopes a day comes when the AIHL is also a choice off-season destination for foreign pros on the rise," writes an NHL correspondent, “much like fall and winter league baseball in the US and Latin America, as well as a breeding ground for an Australian National Team solidly entrenched in the IIHF Division I level".[57]

Overseas players swamped the new National Ice Hockey League for a holiday in the sun when Melbourne rink entrepreneur Pat Burley launched the idea twenty-eight years earlier. The association had to withdraw its support and back the many locals displaced by overseas players.[73]

"Australia is the only place in the world that plays hockey in the North American and European off-season," observes Davis,[3] the Junior A record holder for the lowest Goals Against Average in Canadian Junior hockey history. "Why not open it up to international sponsorship and broadcasting on local stations across the Northern Hemisphere?"

The Canadian expatriate had played with many Hall-of-Famers by the time he moved to Newcastle in 2015.[3] Among the first overseas goalies to save over 90 per cent of shots here, he stayed on, repeating the feat every year bar one. It was so close no one noticed. He won two Goodall Cups and Finals MVP with the Northstars, then another Cup with the Melbourne Ice before returning north.

Why not adopt three 20-minute periods? Davis asks Garry Doré.[3] Hockey took the Newcastle GM away from Canada in 1981. The 22-year-old played for Newcastle in the second NIHL season and stayed on. The GM of the Warner's Bay rink and AIHL club bought into the business. The eighties had set a place for him.

Some players pay $10,000 and more for a season of AIHL in Adelaide and elsewhere. CBR Brave runs at a loss but pays its players large sums of money. Davis wants to know: "How is this fair to the rest? Why are teams almost bankrupt when the AIHL has money in their accounts?"[3]

AIHL directors often forgo actual conversations for Delphic remarks. They call their competition an Entertainment League, a term first used in a courtroom by Vince McMahon, a WWE co-founder. Wrestling was not a competitive sport, he testified. It allowed him to avoid interference from controlling authorities, revenue tax, and employing medical professionals on stand-by as is mandatory for legitimate contact sports involving substantial possibility of injury.[68]

The AIHL is an affiliated national league of an IIHF-member nation. The IIHF governs, develops and promotes hockey worldwide, "taking all necessary measures to aid in the development of young players, coaches and game officials".[58] IHA is supposed to do the same thing locally,[59] but its programs are inadequate.[12, 77]

Go overseas if you want to play in the AIHL, say the AIHL clubs, or get the national association to do better programs. They don't care about imported players displacing locals from the one and only senior men's league in the country. Nor do fans who want a better bang for their buck.

Compare that with the ALIH pro league in East Asia formed "primarily for the development of ice hockey." It allows teams to hire two imports to even out strength and increase competitiveness, compared to five and more here.[69] It has attracted dozens who played NHL running from September to February.

The three-team AIHL started out like that: "… to build for today and the future a strong, nationally based ice hockey competition, featuring the best Australian players and providing the highest quality sports entertainment, whilst offering a development structure for the players and officials of tomorrow."[17]

But it is not operated the same. It does not attract uber-rich owners and international broadcasting deals, either. So, how did it become the illegitimate child of WWE and a fantasy NHL? Local players did not get paid unless they had import appeal, and then only under the table. [32] Most had to pay to play to keep things hobbling along.

It is bizarre, but the sport had no senior men's national League here for almost a century. Instead of forming one, the Rurak administration affiliated the remnants of a failed, self-regulated league over which it had little control.[70] It's heartening, reads the 2002 AIHL mid year report, an enduring affiliation will enable the AIHL "to benefit from the sanction and support of the AIHF, with the AIHF, in turn, benefiting from the player development and the public profile of the AIHL."[17]

Davis would like to know how the National Team improves while the National League languishes, which could be a polite way of saying it can't. How do we make it stronger and promote competition? Why not have one team per state? The words are a slight nudge into oblivion like a paper boat launched into a swift current.

Luckily, the AIHL Brains Trust has magic bullets—exporting under-developed locals and importing overseas players to naturalise and, man, do they come with some super extras. The privileges of affiliation, alignment with the northern hemisphere off-season to boost importation, the third oldest national ice hockey trophy still contested in the world, the best locals, the revenue they generate, the unpaid work of volunteers, tax exemption, the precious ice, no responsibility, and little or no accountability.

At 34, the Tilbury netminder probes less for answers than action. He plays his last game for Newcastle in the 2019 AIHL Finals Series, which they lose. Then, as fate would have it, the South Australian Ice Sports Federation relinquishes its AIHL license. The team drifts rudderless as the sport enters a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19.



"OFFICIATING RULE INTERPRETATIONS and procedure decisions in the PHL were made by four senior officials with a combined one hundred-plus years of officiating experience". Mayer is connecting the dots between respect and conduct. "Apart from the few expected abuse issues, the relations between players and on-ice officials were at a level I had never before and never since witnessed".[1]

I'm watching NHL Rules. Sometimes it looks more like the tale of disaffected American men who chase authenticity by pummelling the shit out of one another in poorly lit basements. Or maybe a scene out of Todd Phillips' Joker, another movie about lost men rising.

But the game itself is under control, and maybe that's Chief's point. Good hockey is not abusive. It is a brotherhood with unwritten rules based on mutual respect for your opponent and protecting each other. These are meant to infuse a sense of propriety to the violence and honour among players, which builds upon the proposition that there's some emotional wisdom or mental enlightenment available in the fighting tolerated by NHL Rules.

The men in Fight Club[43] do not obey its eight rules or give an opponent an even break. The fighting expands into low-grade pranks and vandalism, and eventually, the men form a terrorist cell called Project Mayhem that plants bombs in skyscrapers.

As Mayer recalls it: "This respect between players and officials was most evident at the end of the Finals Series. As you would expect, there were embraces between players in the handshake line. What was likely missed by most, and was not to my knowledge caught on video, was the handshake line with officials. For the first time in my career, players and officials embraced and shared equal congratulations on performance."[1]

Maybe hardcore fans watch hockey to fantasise about induction into a secret bare-knuckle combat cult to restore real masculinity. Maybe the violence there is less unreal and consequence-free than in the movies. Men still quote Fight Club. They still discuss what this bro flick actually means and dress like its characters for Halloween. The bone-splintering, soft-tissue-pulping film is part of a contemporary mass-cultural canon through which many men try to think through masculinity. Make Manhood Great Again. The indulgence is too much, but like hockey it lands some punches.



THE AIHL CANCELLED the 2020 and 2021 seasons due to COVID-19. Volunteers at the Adelaide Club try to secure ice time for a few internal games. The Mandala Property Group Pty Ltd owns the only rink in this city,[30] which is leased by the Ice Factor Foundation. Ice Arena Adelaide manages the rink business,[31] sponsors the Adelaide Adrenaline and donates $400,000 worth of ice time and services to the Ice Factor Foundation.[18, 33]

A Foundation director says they try to keep a rink open in South Australia for hockey and ice sports and three hundred and fifty disadvantaged kids every week.[41, 48] But the AIHL Club volunteers feel brushed off and ignored by Justin Brinkies,[8, 28] security guard, local Blackhawks president, and Chief of Operations at the rink. Some believe he wants control over everything hockey. Club president Eric Balnar has all but stepped away as they prepare to set up a company and document guidelines.[5]

At Ice HQ in May, the Melbourne Ducks launch an exhibition campaign against the Melbourne Ice, which results in a win apiece. Although keen to join the AIHL, an invitation will not be forthcoming.[7]

Up north, AIHL Brisbane renames itself Brisbane Rampage. Hopes are on an AIHL exhibition series in Season 2022, which would make it the first national league team in the city since 2012.[71]

In mid-September, the Ice Arena launches the National Hockey Super League[6] with plans to replicate the NBL1 model, a semi-professional basketball league in Australia.[47] Fans love its big screen and lights, a first in Adelaide.[6] It allows players from Adelaide and Perth to hone and keep up some semblance of skills through the seven month break between AIHL seasons.

In October, the AIHL calls Expressions of Interest for a new Adelaide Adrenaline owner. Next month, it asks the club to book ice, but the rink manager waves it off as premature without a decision on the license. Some are concerned NHSL contracts might restrict players going to the Adrenaline.[5] Brinkies asks about sponsoring the team, and after Christmas, he opens an Adelaide Avalanche account on Instagram. Maybe he wants to revert to the original team name.[5]

The AIHL tells Brinkies his bid for the licence is not proceeding. Someone cuts off the padlocks on the Adrenaline's storage cupboards and disposes of stick tape, water bottles, socks, and the remaining 2019 practice jerseys.[5]

Dayne Davis has lived in Australia seven or eight years, a timber and construction professional who is quite six feet tall, bespectacled and somehow different off the ice. He decides to register his interest in the Adelaide club license. The chairperson of the AIHL Board, Peter Hartshorne, tells him the fee is $30,000 to compete. [3, 82] Davis offers to invest $80,000 to $100,000 in the Adelaide AIHL club with a clear Business Plan and strategy.[89]

It takes $150,000 or so annually to run an AIHL club, about the same as an average café. The Adrenaline has no Business Plan or key performance indicators, no targets for the team to shoot for, no milestones to gauge progress and help people across the organization make better decisions. The League's board needs to clarify the disorganisation.[3]

The AIHL license is a choice of sign-over-your-soul or sacrifice-your-first-born-child. Davis is convinced the Franchisee takes the risks and the League takes the rewards. It is like he rents a house from them that they expect him to renovate and bring up to standard. They want a 5-year business plan and the house value raised, but they can evict him if it is not up to their standard. [81] They could even take it back for unjust or invalid reasons, so he asks for changes to the contract.[3]

In an exchange that helps define the PHL, Hartshorne tells Davis the League does not prescribe club structure; the rink has to be up to a certain standard; and key performance indicators are not available now. Hartshorne talks about an AIHL 4-year Plan, which does not exist.[82] Sitting on the chair edge, Davis picks up the phone and calls the AIHL club in Canberra. A confident and articulate man, he speaks with ease and a trace of phonetic flavour.

The new League will raise money to help clubs across the competition. It will attract funding from overseas to support local players, even the national association. It will build a promotional machine to showcase hockey in Australia to the world. Canberra is excited and wants to join.[3, 90] Davis puts down the phone and immediately picks it up again. What about the Brisbane team still waiting for a license...?

The national association says there is no need to play in the AIHL to qualify for the National Team.[86] They say they will work with the PHL, but behind their backs, they threaten to blacklist players.[3, 84-86] Meanwhile, the AIHL award the Adelaide license to Glen Foll and Benny Gebert.[75] Adrenaline games are now official, and Club volunteers set to work. Dawn Watt tells the Brisbane Rampage there is no interest in a Brisbane AIHL team. It will be 2024 at the earliest. The Club had heard a Brisbane club was not wanted. The state association calls it disappointing but urges them on.[80]

On 9 February 2022, the PHL announces teams from Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Central Coast, and Melbourne. A New Zealand team will join next year. This is the Pacific, where the best of the best will play. [74] That night, the Rampage owners meet with the state association, who accuse them of diluting the League and going against the national body. The owners point to years of AIHL inaction on a Brisbane team, but the association says neither they nor the League wants them. The state executive disaffiliates the Rampage and recommends vetoing the owners' memberships. [83] A surprised Hartshorne writes to the Rampage, unaware that Watt had ruled them out. [93] The AIHL invites the association to enter a team.

A few days later, the AIHL announces its board[75] and plans for new teams in 2023 and 2025. PHL officials hear some met with the CBR Brave in Canberra.[1, 3, 91]

In Adelaide, the Ice Arena claims the CBR Brave asked to leave the AIHL to join the PHL. It accuses the AIHL of breaching the regulations of Sport Australia and the national competition regulator and bullying players and rink owners. The venue has not executed its ice hire agreement with the AIHL club, and the League's conduct is difficult to support. [32] According to unconfirmed reports, the AIHL told the CBR Brave they would have no ice if they joined the PHL. No one denies it, and after nine days, the Canberra Club announces it will stay in the AIHL.[1, 3, 32, 91, 95]

The Adrenaline playing group discusses the prospect of a team in the new League,[5] one per state, each open to international sponsors. The PHL is a complete rule change, 20-minute periods, proper playoff format with fighting allowed, adequate insurance and mandatory paramedics. Strict quotas on top-quality imported players apply and they will not be allowed to override local development. Australians will get opportunities in critical situations for media exposure.

Leaves have begun to fall in the Adelaide Hills when Greg Oddy and Graham Charbonneau contact Adrenaline Coach Sami Mantere. It is almost March and neither he nor the club volunteers have heard from the new owners. Greg and Charbs ask Sammi if he is interested in coaching the Adelaide Avalanche in the PHL.[5]

The expat Finn survived Adrenaline's deathly free fall to the bottom where it shattered into a handful of wins each season. Perhaps the four straight wooden spoons and Goal Differentials of -44, -57, -89 and -117 reflected the poor health of state hockey and its rink. Mantere, who mentored many of the players, decides to wait to see if the Adrenaline gets up. If not, he'll coach them in the new program.[5]

On 28 February 2022, the company that operates the Ice Arena and sponsors the Adrenaline is wound up and liquidators installed.[49] The Adrenaline receives a draft venue hire offer for sixty games averaging twenty games a year. Excluding GST, the rink gets a third of gross receipts or $3,850 per game, whichever is higher.[5] The new owner claims it is "in no way viable or equitable".[60]

The Brisbane Lightning and Central Coast Rhinos secure AIHL licenses a week apart in the same two markets the PHL just entered.[50, 52]

On 27 March, the Adrenaline announces it has no rink. The players, coach, and president leave for the Avalanche in the PHL. "We looked after our players openly and transparently," says one volunteer, also conceding the players felt otherwise. It was a kick in the guts for the few who ploughed unpaid work and money into a company that no longer had a reason to exist.[5]



"THE PHL WAS ONE OF THE FIRST Australian national leagues to form a Players Association," says Mayer, finishing his take with notable achievements. Graham Charbonneau had tried five years earlier, however, some prominent players did not support it. They were more interested in what they could get from the game[3] — money, perks or badge of honour, awards, captaincies, and National Team. Many time-honoured meritocracies are now little more than bargaining chips.

"The first to form a department of player safety that performed formalised post-match incident reviews," continues the League's top official.[3]

Sports Medicine had a central role in Australian ice hockey in the eighties under the guidance of Max McKowen, a nationally recognised medic,[98] and an influx of Brandon University grads who knew about fitness and injury. Australian ice hockey was better at it then. There is a financial cost and the Australian Football League was the first to make all their Clubs report injuries. Rule changes, safety practices, targeted fitness, and preventative education cut the rate.[4] Although games lost to injury increased as the sport got faster, players got bigger and so on, it would be a lot worse without the monitoring and control.

"The first to document officiating standards that equal the standards of play.[3]

"The first to use in-game video review in Australian ice hockey.[3]

"And the first to roster a female official to work an Australian National League men's finals game."[3]

Add to these: a player voice on the Board, three 20-minute periods, best-of-three finals series, semi-finals on the team's home ice, announcement of game officials, real-time instant replays during the Finals Series, and a No Pay To Play policy for all players across all teams. The League also introduced the Four-Official System and decided to address officiating questions fans raised but ran out of time to implement a system.

Spacequake Sports broadcast the NHSL in Adelaide exclusively on SBS OnDemand. They are well-positioned to manage the PHL broadcasting League-wide and produce the Adelaide and Melbourne PHL live streams free to the public on YouTube.[47]

High-level talent join the PHL and supporters relate to them. The shortened season meshes well with local hockey programs and allows a good work-life balance with two hockey-free weekends to recharge. The goal of raising money to support each club fosters cohesion.

The League plans to expand into New Zealand and build on the Trans Tasman Champions League the AIHL ran once and shelved. Regional competition that helps keep up finesse and reaction times is crucial in elite competition. Without it, Australian ice hockey is not where it could be in the world rankings.



ON 1 MARCH 2022, four teams announce they will join the PHL for Season 2022: Adelaide Avalanche, Brisbane Rampage, Melbourne Ducks and The Coast from Erina, New South Wales. Queenstown Rush from New Zealand will join in 2023. The 2022 PHL Schedule is out six weeks before the season opener — twenty games over ten rounds then an August Finals Series for the Walker Cup. Nathan Walker is the first Australian to play in the NHL, the top pro ice hockey league in the world.

The Queensland association extends the ice time for their competitions, which affects the Rampage, but the Club completes their schedule. Owners build a relationship with the rinks, and the managements allow them to play Friday and Saturday nights, simultaneously with Lightning exhibition games, using Boondall and Acacia Ridge rinks when scheduled on the same weekend. [87]

The AIHL season begins without Adelaide or Perth, and PHL gang bashing on its social media drowns out props for the new League. A few point out the PHL is addressing long-standing issues in Australian elite-level hockey. Tom Munro posts a link to a video explaining why he left the Northstars for a gig at The Coast.[10] It is rumoured PHL players will not be allowed in any IHA-sanctioned leagues like the ECSL, U18, State or Australian teams to try and stop the flow of players to the PHL. Players wait to see what happens with National Team selection.[3]

A fortnight after the PHL launch,[90] the national association publishes the National Team Selection Policy, claiming they revised it years earlier. Players must compete in a Senior or U20 league (4 teams) to be eligible.[84] The PHL queries Rule 6.2.1, which mentions the AIHL but no other league.[85] The association says it will withdraw the Rule, while denying it restricts other leagues.[86]

On 13 June 2022, they announce a National Team rebuild, and call players for the IIHF Worlds in Madrid. The Committee is Ryan O'Handley, coaches Matti Luoma, Mick Flaherty and Mark Rummukainen, and former Newcastle player Ray Sheffield.[39] They give players eleven days to respond, and want those in "non-sanctioned" leagues such as the PHL to submit the same information as overseas players, including edited game footage, the League's Official Rule Book noting IIHF variants, and Integrity Documents if unaffiliated with Sports Integrity Australia.[39]

The Committee will select players "on their performance in the AIHL or equivalent or higher level overseas competitions. Selectors will not be viewing any competitions other than the sanctioned Tier One competition/league in each country."[11] They make it easy for AIHL players and exclude the rest.

Ryan O'Handley sits on the National Board and Committee.[96] Amid talk of outside interference, they pick a playing group with an average age of 30 years compared to 23 or 24 for opponents like Spain, Croatia and Iceland and 26 for Israel. Woodman is the only PHL player on the squad. The rest are told they are not required. Some hear it is because they are not registered with the association, but they have until "the tournament or camps" in nine or ten months.[3]

Ross Fisher brought Patrick McMahon back from Minnesota to coach the Ducks. "There was never any interference from Ross or any parents regarding what I was trying to accomplish as a coach," he recalls, comparing it to the AIHL. He says it was more coaching by committee in the Melbourne Mustangs and he never had much support with what he was trying to accomplish. From the first game, one parent tried to tell him how to run his lines and how to coach.[16]

"This parent continued to interfere with what I was doing, and he was continually calling me and also calling the assistant coaches and others complaining about me because he was pissed off over what line his 31-year-old son was playing on. Absolutely the worst parent interference I had ever experienced in 20 years of coaching. The team was aware of this but did nothing, and I was eventually relieved of my coaching duties".[16]

McMahon recalls the huge crowds at games. "The Melbourne Mustangs and Melbourne Ice pale in comparison to the production that Ross put in for fans. Not only was the in-person experience superior, his social media, and in particular, his TV coverage and commentary far exceeded anything the AIHL has ever offered".[16]

The new League allowed some marginal players to step up their game, learn from better players and experience a level higher than club hockey. Several who had never made an AIHL roster went on to play there after the PHL. “Too many people who have been involved for too long dictating how hockey in Australia runs. If you try and do something new you are met with incredible pushback. This is what happened to the PHL. The classic example...is how they banned many players from being considered for selection to the Australian men's team." [16]



"I KNOW THERE ARE MANY comments and anger around why players chose or were forced to withdraw from the PHL," says Joe Mayer. "I can tell you that it was made very clear to several officials verbally that those who took part in the PHL in Season 2023, had it gone ahead, would not have received IIHF Licenses. I can also tell you that I have been excluded from all IHA and AIHL participation because of my position with the PHL. However, I would not change it for anything. I have briefly shared with you why, from an official's perspective, it was the best season in Australian Ice Hockey, with the Melbourne Ducks hosting the best game day experience I have witnessed in Australia. For the first time in my career, players and officials embraced in the handshake line and shared equal congratulations on performance. This lasting memory makes all the resulting ostracism from Australian officiating well worth it".[1]

However, it is illegal for businesses to make contracts, arrangements or understandings that substantially lessen competition in a market. The national association knows this. In 2009, the Rurak administration tried to do just that, permanently restricting the sport to a monopoly only it controlled. Their constitution banned registered members from playing against any team or at any event they did not sanction under threat of suspension or expulsion.[14]

When Hockey Canada imposed sanctions against so-called "outlaw" hockey leagues the year before, the Competition Bureau had them revise the anti-competitive sanctions by May 2009.[78] Two months later, the national association here applied to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for an exemption allowing it to deal exclusively under the Trade Practices Act 1974.[13]

The Central Coast Rhinos had been excluded from the AIHL and another "sanctioned" competition earlier that year.[77] Players had no alternative but to ask for a new league, so Sydney Ice Arena and Erina Ice Arena hosted the Australian International Ice Hockey Cup competition. Owner Ellis Southee said the national association rejected his proposal for league affiliation and payment of all required fees mainly because it competed with the AlHL competition.[76] "In a recent 14-week 'non-sanctioned' competition, we had over 9000 paying spectators. Crowds at some games were far bigger than any games played so far this year in the AlHL competition".[76]

Ice Hockey Australia's only support among thirty submissions from ice rinks, sport and recreation bodies and government came from its member associations in NSW, Queensland and the ACT. The rest thought its proposal would reduce the number of competing providers, disadvantage ice rinks, ice hockey players and the regions IHA did not serve, and give IHA unlimited power over them and the cost to take part.

Sport Australia said National Sporting Organisations like IHA should focus on finding and developing every opportunity to support more ways of playing the sport. Another national league introduces competition as the independent league competes with the association for ice time, players and patrons.[15]

The Commission noted that IHA programs were inadequate to meet the needs of many players and had been for a long time. It rejected the application after determining it was unlikely to deliver the claimed benefits and result instead in public detriments, including reduced consumer choice, fewer people taking part, and a lot less competition for ice time at ice rinks and for related services.

The ACCC message is clear: No barriers to setting up and expanding rival ice hockey leagues. No reduction in the competitive viability of existing rival leagues. No reduction in the frequency of playing time otherwise available to players. No restricting the ability of players and officials to switch between sanctioned and non-sanctioned competitions run at the same time of year or in a similar place.

The Commission pointed to the world's largest ice hockey leagues in Canada and the United States, both IIHF members. USA Hockey does not impose sanctions on members who take part in leagues operated or organised privately, they said. In Canada, players are free to take part in any league they choose until 30 September each year. Then they elect to take part in either competitions run by Hockey Canada or by an independent league.[13]

The AIHL suffers the popularity and dominance of football to align itself with the northern hemisphere off-season. It would help to schedule the match days and puck drops to avoid clashes, but elite-level hockey must still compete across sports for fan attendance. It can't do that effectively while the AIHL holds monopoly power because a lack of competition breeds complacency, which is of no benefit to anyone. With player development, two competing leagues limited to one team in a state may not just be viable, but beneficial.

The people in power claim two leagues dilute the playing pool and that games are lower quality, yet they expand their league. The AIHL had six teams in 2002 and added one-third more in the next 20 years, the rate of population increase. With the PHL launch, they added two more teams that were there but excluded. In a diluted league, the best players record more goals and assists, but this does not happen when a greater spread of players gives value with more evenly distributed output.

Half of AIHL games are blowouts, a win of 4 goals or more, compared to a quarter of PHL games.[99] They are bad for the sport and happen because the AIHL does not promote competitive balance or control costs and gaps between clubs. Among basic measures are amateur drafts, revenue sharing, and increasing gate receipts, membership and sponsorships for struggling clubs by designing fixtures to boost their attendance and live video views. Balance matters, as the PHL showed.[101]

The real issue is anti-competitive and monopolistic practices that entrench complacency by forcing competitors out. When the Victorian Ice Hockey League competed with the six-team state association in the late 1940s, it cut it to four and duplicated it in just one season. Ice hockey peaked in popularity, with rinks at an all-time high and their stands flooded.[97]



IT'S EARLY AND OVERCAST IN MELBOURNE, with that six-in-the-morning feel. Behind Northland Shopping Centre in Reservoir, stands an old basketball stadium that did a lot for hockey. Ross Fisher leased it off Darebin Council in 1998 and converted it for roller derby, inline hockey and lacrosse. Puckhandlers produced many inline and ice hockey players.

The skating entrepreneur had a Top 10 hit with his debut offering, which he later converted into an ice rink from the ground up. Ice HQ opened in 2018 with a hockey school, exciting development programs, and a Junior Development squad called the Junior Ducks. The PHL Melbourne Ducks began here in 2021 during the COVID-19 interruption, now Ice HQ will host the inaugural PHL Walker Cup Finals Series.

Calls to boycott the "rogue league" have not worked. The fans come and not sheepishly. Melbourne take the Minor Premiership with a 6-2 win over Adelaide. "While this series was live, it was all Melbourne," writes Tristan Metcalfe, "with the two Avalanche wins and the OT game coming in the three games after the Ducks had locked up the top spot". The top scorers are Dawes, Webster, Ruddle, Vrielynck, and Carpenter, and for Adelaide: Benson, Riley, Levesque, Corstens, and MacDougall.

At a sold-out Iceworld Acacia Ridge, Adelaide beats Brisbane 11-2, advancing to the Walker Cup Final to take on Melbourne in a best-of-three series. Adelaide wins Game One against Melbourne 4-3 through a Zach Steel game-winner. Benson scores in overtime in Game Two, and that is it. The stands shake thunderously. It rains helmets and gloves. Avs leap over boards and huddle around their goalie, holding on to their moment, all the more sweet for each year spent in the cellar. Finally, a manic Balnar can trumpet: "The city that couldn't beat anybody just beat everybody!" The Avs win the best-of-three series, two games to nil, shots thirty-nine apiece, as close as a couple of coats of paint.

Drinks at Moon Dog, then the Adelaide boys hit the town to celebrate their win. Ducks camera operator Ginie didn't know them, but an Adelaide crew camera operator was friendly with them, and it wasn't hard at all for him to persuade her to go out with them all! At the first bar in Preston, a frustrated bartender wants the old landline phone shaped like a duck back, but no one knows its whereabouts or what it is saying. Politely asked to leave, they descend on Chapel Street, Ginie proclaiming herself Guide. At the Lucky Coq, they chant: "We Won The Cup!" swilling beer from the trophy. Then "We Stole The Duck!" and suddenly the duck appears.



"WE'D LIKE TO BEGIN this letter by saying ‘Thank You'". The last PHL media post is stripped of hope and heavy-hearted. "Together, we changed the landscape of Australian Ice Hockey for the better. When we began... we were beyond excited at the prospect. The PHL is built on values we share as a management group. A 'player first' mentality drove every decision... to completion of a fantastic season and to... award the Walker Cup in 2022 and bring a men's championship to Adelaide for the first time since 2009..."[37]

Partners in the venture invested $500,000. Greg Oddy and Graham Charbonneau helped Davis with the Adelaide Avalanche.[3] "Why create a league where players are disheartened?" asks Davis, mentioning the sixteen straight games he beat Adelaide in the AIHL. "The same players produced different results in the PHL where they were looked after properly".[3] The Rampage in Brisbane explored options after the League folded, including a two-team rivalry. The AIHL said not at this stage.[87]

A vocal minority led the public pile-on, mostly paid or volunteer workers and AIHL anti-fans in Melbourne and Adelaide. Some argued two leagues thinned the talent pool but had never watched a PHL game. Diluting the talent pool is leaving many dozens of top local players in the Brisbane and Central Coast markets with no competition and no path to the National Team.[95] In Adelaide, players and officials chose the PHL after the new AIHL club management did not secure the venue.

The newly corporatised Melbourne Ice had fallen from the top in 2017 to second bottom with Adelaide. Those who left were replaced with an underdeveloped playing group by an administration in disarray. Any remaining veterans had been let down so often over the years they no longer believed. Among the issues were a secretive culture, broken promises, disorganisation, incompetent scheduling, lack of communication, no leadership, ineptness, money in a fund for players but no financial assistance, over-commercialisation, exploitation, and lack of support when injured.[100]

The Ducks were mostly local A-grade players, but attracted six more from three AIHL clubs.[36] That is hardly a thinning of the revolving door that is the AIHL, where nearly 250 played. They were a solid playing group with exclusive access to a new rink. A better club culture and leadership did not exist in the city, and it produced a better product for players and fans. No matter what the Ducks did or how hard they tried, they were screwed. There is a club, and they weren't in it.

Many considered the PHL an exemplar of democratic new ideas compared to any other offering. A few behaved like jilted lovers, rejected for something younger, shiny and new — as if someone took something from them and gave it to players. Sami Mantere expressed sincere gratitude to the volunteers who steered Adrenaline through the pandemic, but a few resented players up and leaving for something better.[5]

PHL fans seemed relieved they were free of daggers still slick with the blood of enemies. Some said their League was less political, had cheaper tickets, closer games, exciting as f*ck, with no big blowouts, and the overall package top tier halfway through the season. Plus, players get a voice at committee meetings.[92] The PHL arranged independent insurance cover and talked over the prospect of broadcasting with SBS. Its games had several million views on YouTube.

Most states only have a player or two in the National Team, with two now supplying over half, but many more aspire to it. Adelaide players withdrew because of their disinterest in competing in a three-team competition and the exclusion of their players from the National Team. They implied a team had withdrawn,[62, 63] reducing the League to less than the association's new minimum of four teams to qualify.[84]

However, the PHL ceased after a League-wide agreement on aspirations for National Team selection, exploring options, and finally deciding it could not finance a league or team lower than Tier One.[88] Over one hundred men in four teams with dozens of club and game officials brought a new ice hockey league to life with endless hours of unpaid attention and toil. They were the soul of the new league.

PHL co-founder Dayne Davis admits he underestimated the vindictiveness and resistance to change. “The AIHL is a niche of a niche sport," he says pointedly, with a whaddaya-gonna-do shrug. "They want to keep things as they are to suit themselves".[3] The hockey media is paid in money, favours or a few scraps thrown from the table of big boys who it should hold accountable. A sports writer or commentator who always aligns their analysis with prevailing orthodoxy is not a writer or commentator but a courtier. Jack the Ripper asked to investigate murders of women in Whitechapel.

The most over-privileged blamed PHL organisers for what happened to its players and officials. While many aspire to belong to a club, a few are neither deserving nor worthy of the advantages and opportunities over others. What's a club anyway? Not the board or the president or the people who represent it. It is a small boy or girl clambering up the stands for the first time, gripping their father's hand, gawping at the hallowed sheet of diamond glow beneath them, and unable to do a thing about it, falling in love.

The competition regulator decided IHA's monopolizer conduct is a barrier to rival ice hockey leagues and reduces the competitive viability of existing ones. It should have ceased in 2010. Players and officials have less opportunity to take part when forced to choose between sanctioned and non-sanctioned leagues. It could also lessen competition in the market for hiring out rinks. Any efficiencies in one body controlling insurance and safety do not outweigh the competition problems.[62]

We judge Australian ice hockey by the state of its governance and the people and organisations meant to hold it accountable. It fails us when the people in power are not answerable. It is hard to think of a string of achievements in Australian hockey history as consistently powerful, shape-shifting, and durable as the PHL's only season. It was Australia in the twenties, and hockey people everywhere discussed local content and over-reliance, opportunity, spectacle, respect and propriety, all in a vocabulary that the PHL helped devise.

The National Team was chilling out from the convulsions of twice reaching Division I at home and tumbling back to Earth next year. They had holed out at the first green or joined the PTA. Vancouver erupted in riots after the 2011 Stanley Cup Final Game 7. The Caps got their first Cup with help from Australia's Nathan Walker. It was the last moment the cabal of hockey dinosaurs here seemed likely to die out from natural causes. Now, it might take a great calamity — an asteroid impact, or a sixth ice age.

It seems almost absurd to praise the PHL for its innovations when its entertainment was at least as enjoyable as any here with few overseas players. The League was going to add more, but the ambience comes back even now, very vividly, when you put those games on and listen to the apocalyptic boom of Anton Goss tailgating every square centimetre of action and the deadpan interjections of prophetic doom and gloom courtesy of Carl Brewer. You feel what PHL organisers felt about Australian hockey: the urge to value its most precious resource, fully aware it cannot be, that it is impossible and faintly annoying to think otherwise, but knowing too that people's best intentions are always beautiful.

WITHOUT LEGAL PROTECTION, the ACCC suggested, Ice Hockey Australia might wish to remove Rule 4.22 from their constitution. The one proposing to suspend or expel any member who takes part in a non-sanctioned Australian or international ice hockey game. The Commission goes to court if needed to achieve its compliance goals.[12]

Over a decade later, a new national league folded after IHA threatened and blacklisted its players and officials.[3]

Its clubs withdrew after exclusion of players from the National Team.[64, 88]

Its Referee In Chief is still excluded from IHA and AIHL participation and others are still being punished.[1]

The AIHL did implement some PHL initiatives after decades of inadequately meeting players' needs, including new teams in markets abandoned for a decade and more, and such fundamentals of elite competition as three 20-minute periods.[65, 66]

The National Team lost four of their five games in Madrid, failing to medal for the first time since 2015 and narrowly avoiding relegation.[67]

The CBR Brave and the AIHL declined to comment on the Canberra Club's withdrawal from the PHL.[91] The AIHL declined to comment on the PHL or its decade of disinterest in Brisbane and Central Coast teams.[95]