Last weekend, there was only one series in the Australian Women’s Ice Hockey League (AWIHL) with the Melbourne Ice travelling to Sydney to play the Sydney Sirens at Macquarie Ice Rink on Saturday and Sunday.
With five teams in the league and the Melbourne Ducks playing limited exhibition games, it would not be possible for every team to play every week. This series might have been the only series of the weekend but there’s a lot to talk about. There’s always plenty of action to watch all over the ice when these two great rivals meet.
While 8.30 am Sydney time is an early start for hockey on Sunday morning at Macquarie (and other Sunday morning times across the league), it’s early enough for interstate teams to get home at a reasonable hour.
C’mon Emma!!!
Saturday afternoon did have several issues with the broadcast which meant that people who were not at Macquarie did not have the best experience. As someone who has had vast experience in live sport production in and outside of Australian hockey, I understand the frustration of the fans who are trying to watch.
I better than most also understand some of the various factors involved in sending the action from what are essentially community sports facilities to the fan watching from home. I’m pleased to report that Sunday’s game was much better with no issues.
Unrelated to the AWIHL, I did note that Netflix were also having issues with providing live images from a sporting event, with a billion times the amount of resources that the AWIHL and Australian hockey has when it comes to streaming games around the same time. It’s also very common for Australian fans to report issues watching National Hockey League (NHL) games. Let’s hope that we can see the hockey we want to get hyped about moving forward.
Have an ice day!
Macquarie’s new ice surface looked fantastic! It featured many logos of the teams and leagues that play at the venue. The better the ice, the better the play should be, as the players, in theory, at least, should be able to skate better on a better ice surface, not to mention clear blue lines to improve offside calls for officials. It also makes for better viewing at the arena and on the screens at home.
Anyone can beat anyone on any given day
What an opening weekend for the Sirens! Nayoka Wellard started in net on Saturday and picked up her first career AWIHL win as the Sirens won 5-1. On Sunday, Ella Licari picked up the win for the Sirens to sweep the Ice with a 6-3 win on Sunday morning.
Who, apart from diehard Sirens fans, had a Sirens weekend sweep on their AWIHL bingo card for this weekend? While one weekend does not make a season, the body of evidence so far is in favour of this season’s Sirens compared to last year.
In a fun fact (you know by now that I like fun facts, right?), Danielle Butler scored the first goal on both Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see her first goal on Saturday which was the only Ice goal for that game.
Linda Bjorling scored two goals in the last minute of the first period of Saturday’s game but she was not finished there. She also collected assists on a Sarah Edney goal in the second period and Kath McOnie’s second goal in period three.
In addition, Bjorling also scored a goal on Sunday. If you only watch the replay of one goal from this weekend, Bjorling’s Sunday goal, where she dekes past Makayla Peers to make it 5-3 Sirens, was a personal highlight.
The show must go on!
The Sarah Edney Show continued over the weekend with another hat-trick on Sunday (did Sirens arena announcer JD yeet his hat onto the ice?) and earned two assists. She also contributed a goal and assist on Saturday for a seven-point weekend.
Edney was far from alone, though, with Bjorling and McOnie notching doubles on Saturday. On Sunday, Kelsie Lang, Stephanie Newmark and Bjorling also scored goals alongside Edney.
At the Melbourne end of the ice, Danielle Butler, Emily Davis-Tope and Christina Julien scored goals on Sunday in addition to Butler’s lone goal on Saturday. They made the Sirens goalies work for their wins with Wellard facing 31 shots on Saturday and Licari facing 41 shots on Sunday.
For the Ice, Kayla Best conceded five goals from 30 shots on Saturday while Makayla Peers conceded five from 26 shots on Sunday, playing much better than the raw stats might suggest.
The path to the penalty areas of Macquarie were well worn from both teams. On Saturday, Sydney was three from five on its powerplays, while Melbourne was unsuccessful on its four powerplays. Both teams had eight power play opportunities on Sunday with the Sirens converting twice. The Ice did not score a powerplay goal all weekend.
Do the Ice have answers?
An interesting stat for me was how the Ice did not answer the Sirens with goal-scoring in either game. Danielle Butler scored the Ice’s only goal on Saturday, with five unanswered Sirens goals after that.
On Sunday, the Ice did score the first three goals in the first period – their best period of the weekend. The Sirens then replied with six unanswered goals including four in period two. The Ice outshot the Sirens on both days, so there’s no need for panic at the disco south of the Murray River and no need to use the word adversity just yet.
They’ll no doubt put this weekend behind them and focus on their next series against the Rush in Adelaide in a couple of weeks. In some games, teams alternate their goal-scoring (you score, I score), but that did not happen this weekend.
Looking to the weekend ahead
The Brisbane Lightning has their official season home opener after they hosted the Melbourne Ducks in an exhibition series a couple of weekends ago. With Sunday having a country theme, the Lightning hosts Adelaide Rush. This series is the only one across the league again this weekend with two series the following weekend.
Adelaide had a fantastic series a couple of weeks ago despite splitting the series with Perth Inferno last time out. Meanwhile, Brisbane also had an excellent series against the Ducks. But this time against the Rush, it’s for competition points! (That last sentence sounds better in JD’s announcer voice rather than mine!)
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