A hotel someplace

Part 2: Juniors in search of excellence

While it cannot be denied that ice hockey is the fastest game in the world, it must be conceded that Australians have not reached the speeds attained by the crack Canadian combinations. Still, the Australians are not far behind them, and some of our best men would hold their own in teams in the Dominion. Where practice can be had at almost any time of the year, it is natural that the game should have grown apace and that crowds at between 20,000 to 40,000 people should gather to witness the matches...Though several suggestions have been made to bring some of the Canadians here, nothing has been done owing to the heavy expense that would be incurred. It would not be wise to bring only one team. Two teams to play exhibition games would cost so much that it would be almost impossible to finance the tour. It may become possible, but at present the possibility seems very remote. We can only improve our own game here and hope that some day we may match a Canadian combination.

— Ted Molony, Captain of Victoria, 1928. [2]

At long last, Australia had a junior men's program with a player development system and a national tournament program for each of five age-bands: under 13, 16, 18 and 23. There were no more dropouts after Botterill coached the National Junior Team to its first win against Iceland in 2000. National junior squads have competed ever since.

But, over the inactive years, the National Ice Hockey Development Council also ran down.


AFTER A WEEK TRAINING in Ceské Budejovice, the 12-hour trip to Belgrade invites spent bodies to recuperate, wired minds to unwind, before reassembly for the task. Small comforts are big, the long adventure in transit almost as gruelling as the adventure of the world stage itself. Jobs abandoned for unfamiliar gate lounges, for hotels someplace, they will miss the cash, the language, the nutrition and sleep, amid all this, God's promise of a patch of iridescent white is heavenly respite.

Their opponents will be mostly pro, paid to play. They will have slept the good sleep, will rise to a good meal, stretch like a drawn bow, like an arrow to a heart, fine-tuned to the finesse of the game, their season peak, to face the Lucky Country, where the season peaked 7 months ago. A relegated Croatia, a China who played together in Finland for 6 months, trained for 2 more in a camp intended to deliver them to the next Winter Olympics, which they will host in Beijing.

But here, at last, far from home, Australians receive respect for who they are, not pity for disadvantage, nor for staring down adversity. Respect for arriving for the 36th time, for flying their colours, for enduring the ineffable lessons that accrue to the underdog. On a bad day they will be difficult to play. On a good day, they will be equals among hockey nations. On every day they will shoulder hope from a remote corner of the world. They will raise your anthem, raise their sticks, raise the bar, raise the questions—What better game? Are you not entertained?

"White City", where the Sava River kisses the Danube, is not a pretty capital but its gritty exuberance makes it one of Europe's cradles of cool. There in the wee hours of the morning the Australian Men's Ice Hockey Team posted a determined 3-2 win over the home side Serbia, to lift itself into second place in the World Championships after two rounds.

On the road to Belgrade, Australia lost Kai Miettinen to training injury, flew in Bert Malloy, then battled themselves in the opening game. So far it's been a tournament styled with the same grit and exuberance that has come to define modern Belgrade itself. In the grandiose coffee houses and smoky dives of the city where the home side has just fallen, talk will turn to hockey. And, against the tide of opinion separating the Australian game from the rest, the Mighty Roos once again contemplate their arrival within striking distance of Gold, and promotion to Division 1 for just the third time in history.

Like most of Belgrade's post war architecture, the Hala Pionir ice hall is not a pretty building, but it is somehow at home tucked in among the blackened facades, cracked and crumbling flagstones, and out-of-date infrastructure. This city ignores the millennia of tumult, from Attila the Hun to Sloboden Milosevic, much like the mortal combatants on the shimmering sheet of ice that is usually crowded out with party skaters.

While the triumphant strains of Advance Australia Fair still echoed through the empty hall overnight, wounds were re-dressed to air, limbs stretched and pressed, minds freed from the hyper focus of assault. The emergency over, the thrill gone, the sudden jump-start that produced the most efficient version of these players abates. Blood flows from critical organs back to the rest of the body, hands shake, legs feel weak, the ability to feel pain returns.

Spain has fallen, a 0-4 shutout. The space between dream and reality at the top of the table of the Division 2A Ice Hockey Worlds is now Australian occupied territory.

By 2019, about one quarter of Australia's four thousand ice hockey players were players under the age of 21. Back when Australia returned to the World Juniors after an absence of 13 years, the team won their first ever international match. Overall they have won only twenty-eight percent of all their games from seventeen Worlds appearances. Ranked 20th in the world when they started, they were ranked 31st by 2015. The National Youth Team (U18) were ranked 34th in the world from thirteen appearances by 2015, which is about where they started. Both have now been participating internationally for well over three decades.

Although today's national junior tournaments were set up in the 1960s and '80s, [16] the ethos that drives them has evolved for well over a century, from the first schoolboy encounters with North Americans in the 1900s, through the first junior inter-club competitions in Victoria during the early-1930s, to inter-rink competitions and interstate contests, initially in the two biggest cities, and eventually every State.

Syd Tange witnessed most of this junior history, and no doubt the courage required of Australian juniors of all ages. The grit and authenticity, the bloodline, that cannot be purchased with a travel visa or dual nationality. It is after all an inheritance. The spirit and culture of Australia.

So, it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace, and a world competitiveness we must master. Australia's national junior and youth squads matter for as long as we want our national senior team to be populated by Australian-born players.

Yet, there is also clear evidence that a good deal more is involved in a world class junior development program than participation in national and international tournaments. The formation in 2012 of a national junior league, as a prerequisite to Australia's continued participation in the World Juniors, is one good example. So are renewed attempts at regional competition, starting across the ditch.


IN THE HEART OF STARI GRAD, people gather in wait from dusk to dawn in Republic Square, ringed by some of Belgrade's most impressive buildings. But a 15-minute walk away, behind a modernist glass façade that mirrors surrounding dilapidation, the Australian men's ice hockey team lie comatose. The city that never sleeps has its share of smoke and mirrors, much like hockey, a zero-sum game until overtime or a shootout produces a win worth less, and a loss worth more.

When the players rise, they will flush wasted leg muscles of lactic acid, the unwanted burn of very soft ice. But the stitched cuts, swollen joints, and separated shoulders some are willing into action will not repair today. Their owners will just chill, wait the last call, while bodies restore a chemical best rendition. Their mental challenge is to stay in the zone, to visualize the end of a road that among their number, only their Captain has seen.

Outside in a Cross-less night sky, some stars burn brighter than others, but that too is deceiving. They just reflect more light from something unseen, something greater than themselves. That's the thing about the souls of good teams, even the brotherhood of man, or the music of the spheres. Whole constellations of star-dust bring order to a mad universe, even though we may only see its glory in the prettiest stars.

China, the Olympic aspirants, lost a chance to stave off relegation, 3-2. On Monday, the Australians will now play a relegated Croatia for Gold and promotion to Division 1.

But they will not win.

__________

Towards the end of his life, Syd Tange wrote the only history of an Australian state ice hockey association and, while mostly anecdotal, it is a significant history. Its dedication reads: To the Pioneers of Ice Sports whose vision and dedication introduced a sport normally associated with the Northern Hemisphere into Australia. [3]

From left: Elgin Luke, Syd Tange, Sid Hiort, John McCrae-Williamson, undated. Birger Nordmark Archive.