The League announced the 2024 AIHL season awards on the weekend at Finals.
These announcements followed the nominations released a month ago. Six players and one coach were selected as winners in seven award categories. The award winners list consisted of personnel from five teams. This included three people from the Hellyer conference and four from the Rurak conference.
In addition to the regular seven awards, there was a surprise bonus award given this year to a patron of the league.
The winners list
| Award | Winner | Team |
|---|---|---|
| Most Valuable Player (MVP) | Kaden Elder | Adelaide Adrenaline |
| Finals MVP | Jake Ratcliffe | Canberra Brave |
| Rookie of the Year | Daniel Koudelka | Adelaide Adrenaline |
| Skaters Network Local of the Year | Robert Haselhurst | Perth Thunder |
| Defenceman of the Year | Ryan Annesley | Sydney Bears |
| Goalie of the Year | Rylan Toth | Adelaide Adrenaline |
| Coach of the Year | Jason Kvisle | Sydney Ice Dogs |
| Patron of the Year | Mick McCormack |
Who votes for the awards?
Awards are voted for by a panel of 11 people. This panel consists of 10 team governors, giving each team a vote as well as a representative of the Players Association. In 2024 that representative was Daniel Pataky of the Sydney Ice Dogs.
Goalie award heats up
Out of all the awards this year in 2024, the goalie of the year proved to be the most hotly contested award. There were good reasons why any of the nominees could have won this award. Rylan Toth had a tremendous season with Adelaide, helping the South Australians become one of the best defensive teams in the league. He had a goals against average below three and a save percentage above 90%.
However, the favourite for the award, Melbourne Ice’s Japanese goaltender Tatsunoshin Ishida, missed out on the award. Ishida had a stellar season himself. Highlighted by two shutouts, topping the league charts for save percentage and helping the Ice secure their best league start.
Ishida was the predicted winner by the majority of HHA staff in our round-table and by Canberra Brave defenceman Nick Christensen, who also picked him for the award in his pre-Finals predictions.
In any case, Toth was a fine choice, if just a little surprising. Hopefully we see both Ishida and Toth back in the AIHL in 2025.
How did the Hockey Hype Australia staff predictions pan out?
The best way to describe our predicting skills is to say ‘don’t give up your day job’. We were truly horrific with the predictions. We did all guess the rookie of the year correctly but apart from that it was sketchy at best. There are lot of crosses in the table below that showcases what we got right and wrong.
| Award | Gordon | Sean | Courtney | Tristan | Eric |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Most Valuable Player (MVP) | X | ✓ | ✓ | X | X |
| Finals MVP | X | X | X | X | X |
| Rookie of the Year | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Skaters Network Local of the Year | X | X | X | X | X |
| Defenceman of the Year | ✓ | X | X | X | X |
| Goalie of the Year | X | X | X | X | X |
| Coach of the Year | X | X | X | ✓ | X |
Nick Christensen in comparison ended up with one correct prediction, that was Kaden Elder for MVP.
For more AIHL news and stories like this one on the 2024 AIHL Awards. Please check out Hockey Hype Australia’s AIHL News section.
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