The puck dropped in the opening game of the 2024 AIHL Finals presented by Hungry Jack’s on the afternoon of Friday 23 August at O’Brien Icehouse, Melbourne.

Friday’s first playoff game was between the Melbourne Ice and Brisbane Lightning. The Ice finished second in the Hellyer Conference while the Lightning finished third in the Rurak Conference. In the regular season, the Ice took the series against the Lightning 2-1.

Brisbane was pleased with the return of import goaltender Curtis Meger for this vital game. After being suspended for two games which would have included the Preliminary Final, the Lightning successfully appealed to an independent tribunal which saw Meger’s place in the lineup secured.

At the other end of the ice, the Ice’s Tatsunoshin Ishida has been a popular selection by some members of the Hockey Hype Australia staff in their predictions for him to be named the 2024 Goaltender of the Year. Speaking of awards, Adelaide Adrenaline’s Daniel Koudelka was named as the 2024 AIHL Rookie of the Year prior to the start of this game.

In the opening of the game, the ice was heavily slanted in the direction of the Melbourne Ice. Brisbane had real difficulty clearing the puck out of their defensive zone, however, Curtis Meger was not pressured early. The first real chance that the Ice created in the first five minutes was a breakaway by Jed Lake.

Against the run of play, Julian Fodor deked around the Ice defence to sneak the puck past Ishida. Fortunately for the Ice, however, Fodor was ruled to be offside so the goal did not count even after review.

Very soon after, Austin Albrecht created a turnover opportunity on the Lightning blue line, quickly finding captain Mack Caruana who found Roman Kraemer unaccompanied on the right hand post with 13.33 remaining in the first period to score the first goal of the Finals series.

Puck luck favoured the Ice on their second powerplay goal of the afternoon. Lliam Webster fired a shot from the top of the umbrella towards Meger. A rebound found the stick of Jed Lake past the sprawling goalie to give the Ice a 2-0 lead with 5.09 remaining in the first period.

In the shadows of the first intermission and towards the tail end of another powerplay, Albrecht delivered the puck to Joey Hughes who was camped out in front of Meger. With what seemed to be an eternity, Hughes had lots of time to roof the puck top shelf over Meger’s shoulder with 52 seconds remaining in the period.

With Julian Fodor and Batu Gendunov the lone rangers in the Melbourne Ice defensive end, Ice took a 3-0 lead into the first intermission. A busy Meger made 16 saves for the period while Ishida had a much quieter five save period.

Outclassed in the first period, Lightning had to start climbing the mountain early with a 3-0 deficit to start the second period. The pain continued into the second period with another powerplay goal for the Ice with a Johnny Aonso bullet from the blue line with 14.17 on the clock in the second period.

Aonso’s goal was the only marker during a penalty filled second period with Ice leading shots on goal 32-10.

With a potential three games in three days to win the Goodall Cup, the Ice can be forgiven for throttling back the afterburners since Aonso’s goal earlier in the second period. Without Meger in net last weekend for the Lightning’s only game in Perth last Saturday, they were a totally different team in that 6-0 defeat.

The Lightning warmed up in the third period, however, the game was largely over as a contest.

Somewhat surprisingly, Ice were unable to add to their total in the third period until yet another powerplay goal. Kraemer’s second goal of the afternoon came late in period three with 2.01 remaining. Kraemer barged in, banging his own rebound in at close range despite the attention of Meger.

This goal gave Melbourne Ice their well earned 5-0 win with seemingly little collateral damage leading into Saturday’s game.

Importantly for the winners and himself, Ishida’s net remained dry (despite the best efforts of Gendunov and Fodor) for his first shutout of the weekend. Final shots on goal favoured the Ice 48-19 with Ice scoring 4 out of 6 times on the player advantage.

Ishida had two shutouts in the regular season against the Rhinos (home) and Thunder (away). He will have a much bigger challenge against the Northstars.

While Brisbane head home and prepare for the 2025 season, Ice have an appointment against Newcastle Northstars in Semi-Final two on Saturday night.

Melbourne Ice head coach Kerry Goulet spoke with Hockey Hype Australia after the game. “We realized that our team is all about being fast, compete, relentless, and we have to out-compete teams. We did that in that first five minutes, even though we didn’t score. We just saw that we had the tempo, and listen, we had veteran lines with Jamie Bourke, Liam Webster, and of course, Joey Hughes, just the way they started us off, just gave us that confidence to realize this is the way we played all year.”

Goulet continued with what is coming up next for the Ice. “We’re back, and this is the way we need to continue on playing as we go
down the next couple games. Obviously, to win the Goodall Cup, you’ve got to win three games in three days. That’s the path for the Melbourne Ice.”

Meanwhile, Brisbane Lightning Terry Kiliwnik reflected on his team’s second year in the league and their second appearance at AIHL FInals. “We’re only a second year team. We don’t like to use that as an excuse because we’re here to win. I think we have been improving and we’ve learned some stuff from finals this year and throughout the year.”

Looking forward to the future positively beyond tonight’s game, Kiliwnik is looking long term. “We’re going to come back as a force next year, I think. It’s looking positive. We’ve got a really young crew of guys. They’ve learned a lot. They’re only going to get better and better as they play. So I think Brisbane, with the fans, the organisation, everything, we’ve got a really bright future, I think.”