Lovering, Tyler

BORN JULY 13TH 1971 at Wilcox, Saskatchewan in Canada, the son of Kelly and Mary Lyn, he played for the Spokane Chiefs and the Moose Jaw Warriors of the WHL; the Notre Dame Hounds of the SJHL; and the University of Massachusetts Lowell River Hawks in the NCAA Div I. He graduated in 1989 and moved to Australia in 1995 where he represented New South Wales in defense and led the Sydney Bears in the inaugural season of the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL). His name is inscribed on the Goodall Cup four times — 1996, 1999, 2002 and 2007. He won the John Nicholas Trophy in 1999, the Goodall Cup MVP. On retirement after the 2008 season, he had played 13 seasons with the Sydney Bears, winning AIHL championships in 2002 and 2007.

He joined the national senior team for the 1998 IIHF Pool-D Worlds and continued each year until 2004, then again in the 2006 Worlds in Auckland where he won a fifth IIHF Division 2 bronze medal. He returned from retirement when he heard about the bid to host the 2008 tournament in Australia, and so it was he added a Division 2 gold medal to his collection of a silver and 5 bronze — a veteran of nine World Championships between 1998 and 2008, some as captain. Australia was promoted to Division 1 for the first time in 2008 and that was also the first time the nation had competed at the second-highest level since 1962. It was a win that meant many things because it happened on the centenary of ice hockey in Australia, the centenary of the International Ice Hockey Federation, and on home soil in front of a capacity crowd at Newcastle. Lovering is a founder of the AIHL and a commissioner and executive chairman following his return in 2010. He is the director of Australian Financial Publications, a financial media company.

His father, John "Kelly" Lovering (1945 - 2014), was head coach of the Australian national team in the four campaigns between 1998 and 2001. Previously, he was a chairman of the Canadian Hockey Association's (CHA) National Coaching Committee. From 1980 to 1990, at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, he was Athletic Director, Hockey Coordinator, senior football and hockey coach and an enthusiastic and motivating educator. He mentored such future hockey stars as Curtis Joseph, Wendel Clark, Rod Brind'Amour, Gary Leeman and Dale Derkatch. His legacy to the sport are the 38 players under his tutelage who eventually reached the NHL. His passion for the game of hockey saw him serve as a coach and administrator here and all around the world in places like China, Holland, New Zealand, Japan, England, Iceland, Spain, South Africa, Estevan, Regina, La Ronge, Montmartre and Wilcox. He was presented with the Gordon Juckes Award, Hockey Canada's highest honour given to an individual for outstanding contribution to the development of amateur hockey in Canada at the national level. [618, 619]