Dewhurst, Alfred Robin

BORN 1933 IN SCOTLAND, [5] he began ice hockey after the War at the age of thirteen and first played for his State at 19 in 1952, the youngest player on the team in a series of games against the visiting Canadian Navy. He played Right Wing and scored the first goal of the series. [606] He and Paddy King played Cinderella' s comic ugly sisters in the end-of-season pantomime staged by Sydney's professional skaters at the Glaciarium in September that year. [4]

Dewhurst first represented NSW in the 1953 Goodall Cup in Sydney won by Victoria, scoring one of four goals in the dead rubber of the last game with Tueller, Mueller and Sid Green. A record loss, 17-4, NSW reportedly "lacked a solid defense against Victoria's fast play". [2] In 1954, he again played against a visiting Canadian team. [3]

A Goodall Cup rep many times for his state, a 5-year hiatus interrupted his interstate career between the closure of Sydney Glaciarium and the opening of the new outdoor rink at Prince Alfred Park.  When local hockey resumed in Sydney, Dewhurst led the St George ice hockey club as Captain and became the first player to wear a helmet during a hockey game in Australia. [1] He won back-to-back Goodall Cups at PA in Sydney in 1963 and at St Moritz in Melbourne in 1964, the year he joined the Eastern Suburbs club in the local league.

The only non-Victorian on Australia's first Olympic ice hockey team in 1960, [6] his citizenship papers were not in order and so he could not play . Similar oversights occurred with three players in the next international, the 1962 World Championship, but this time he  played.  [7] Appointed vice-captain to Ken Wellman, he was among the players who recorded Australia's first International win against Denmark at Denver Coliseum on March 15th 1962. New South Wales teammates Roddy Bruce, Vic Mansted and Bill Renton also toured, but this time Bruce was ruled ineligible.

A pastry cook by profession, some of the boys he coached crossed sticks in a guard of honour  at his wedding to Helen. He actively fostered the Australian Oldtimers League in Sydney, and traveled to many national and international Oldtimers Tournaments. He coached and played hockey well into his seventies while resident at East Corrimal on the NSW Central Coast, a regular at the Hunter Ice Skating Stadium and Erina Ice World from around 2000.

"Just five years ago, Dewhurst  was still an adept player," wrote Peter Lambert in a 2016 eulogy for the athlete, "and was playing with a smile on his face among four generations of players. There was always a smile on Dewhurst's face around an ice rink. I believe I recall him scoring a goal in the 2010-11 Warner's Bay summer league in Open-B. He was 78 years of age".  [1]

An organizer with the "Stiffy's", the Stiff Breeze Over-35 master team, he joined the World Olympians Association in 2002, a volunteer organisation that helps behind the scenes at major sporting events. He shared his experiences of the game wherever he went, especially as a perennial favourite at special events. He died on August 11th 2016 after a long fight with illness. Survived by his wife, Helen, he lived to see his tattered national senior team jersey displayed in the Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto.  

The Old-timer's League named the Dewhurst Fair Play Trophy in his honour. "If there had been a person we could name as Patron of the Newcastle North Stars club and community," observed Lambert, "it would have been Dewhurst." He received the Australian Sports Medal in 2000,  [56] and Life Membership of the national ice hockey association the same year.