Welcome to the 2025 AIHL Mid Season Review. It’s, roughly, half way through the season for all teams now. So how is everyone going? Let’s briefly delve into all eight teams and find out.
Adelaide Adrenaline
Games played: 14
Current position: 7th
In truth it has taken time for the Adrenaline to get going. Initially it was not their own doing, with the South Australians starting the season later than everyone else. It took time to build their roster, get imports in place and have the new coach settle in. Long term team illness and injuries have not helped, but in the past few weeks the team has finally arrived.
Dolan is performing better and better as the season goes on in goals, the additions of Romans Nekludovs and Coy Prevost have provided grit and silky skills to support scoring leader Josh Adkins. But the biggest factor in Adelaide’s mid-season performance improvements, something I have loved seeing, is the uplift in local talent production. There has for a long time been talk of the up and coming youngsters learning their trade in Adelaide. Slowly building into a formidable team to beat.
They began producing defensively last season but scoring production still alluded them. Now we are seeing the likes of Benson, Chen, Koudelka, Foll, Trnka and the McGuiness brothers among the others all performing well and regularly producing. Multiple lines bringing danger to opposing defenses. It makes the Adrenaline a much harder team to contain.
You combine all this with a marked improvement on special teams mid-season, and it offers hope for brighter days ahead of the Adelaide faithful. Perhaps things are lining up nicely for Adelaide to make a charge in the second half of the season and get back into Finals?
Canberra Brave
Games played: 14
Current position: 6th
The Canberra Brave love doing things the hard way in recent times. 2025 has the same feeling as 2024. Slow start to the season before the team finally comes together to pick up pace and finish strong. For the second year in a row, this feels distinctively like the Brave story.
However, while performances on the ice have been bumpy to begin with, the mood off the ice has been chalk and cheese different to last season. The move to the Palace (AIS Arena) has been central to this good-vibes mindset. Watching the arena pack out with 3,000 fans is something else. It proves hockey can become a bigger sport in Australia if given the opportunity and backing to shine.
Now the Brave need to get things right on the ice to secure their finals placing and give themselves a shot at back-to-back Cups. The mid-season arrivals to fill the import slots and strengthen the roster gives belief that this can be achieved. But there is a lot of work to put in and find that success once more.
Brisbane Lightning
Games played: 14
Current position: 2nd
If you’re a Brisbane Lightning fan in 2025, you are having a ball of a time. Brisbane are riding high in second, far higher than what many would have thought pre-season. The Lightning are playing tough swashbuckling hockey with what feels like an extremely tight-knit group of players who are playing to their strengths and minimising deficits. Brisbane are simply the surprise packet of the season so far.
Christer Lundkvist as new head coach and the group of imports signed for 2025, look as though they have been carefully selected to compliment the local contingent. The ‘fab five’ (Hopps, Sturny, Miller, Gendunov, Rapchuk) are firing on all cylinders and fear no defence in the league. While, at the other end, in net, Matus Trnka and Jakob Doornbos have formed the best tender tandem in the league this season.
Brisbane will be hoping to deliver more of the same for the second half of the season.
Melbourne Ice
Games played: 17
Current position: 1st
Kerry Goulet has been on a quest to bring a Goodall Cup back to the Melbourne Ice for the first time since 2017. Each season since he arrived the Ice take a step forward to that end goal. This season, the Ice have looked formidable. There is an air of Brave 2019 about the Ice this term. The self belief that no matter what position the team finds itself in, they can prevail victorious is impressive. I can’t recall the last time seeing a team come from multiple goals down in the third period to win so often.
Individually, just as collectively, the Ice have been strong all over the ice. Ishida is having a great second season in the AIHL in goals, Tyrone Bronte has been a revelation since returning to the league , Vinnie Hughes looks like he never left the AI, Kolton Shindle has been one of the big import surprises this season having come out of the blue, and David Booth has provided NHL firepower with his explosive pace and eye for goal.
If the Ice can keep this pace up in the second half of the season they could be in with a shout of breaking a few records and picking up trophies.
Central Coast Rhinos
Games played: 16
Current position: 8th
I find it crazy that at the half way point the Rhinos are sitting at the bottom of the table. They have at times played so much better than there position indicates. They have all the ingredients for a good AIHL team, they just have to put it all together and find the consistency they crave.
The recent arrival of Danick Bouchard should help the team put more shots on goal, something the Rhinos need to turn around to make Finals. The other major thing for the Rhinos to improve on is minimising shots against them. Oberoi is such a great goaltender, but trying to save 50+ shots a game is a hard feat to accomplish.
The Rhinos have strong leadership on and off the ice. They have a a core group of youngsters who are exciting to watch as they develop, these include Bolger, Remler-Jensen, Kohvakka and the Kuleshov brothers. There is a lot or fans to get behind so I hope to see Erina continue to bustle with good crowds and for the Rhinos to turn some of the close losses into wins. If they can do this, they will be knocking on the door of a Finals place.
Melbourne Mustangs
Games played: 15
Current position: 4th
The heavy pre-season favorites, the Mustangs are in a good league position for a tilt at a championship title this season but are perhaps not in as strong a position as one would have expected. A strong start to the season has turned to patchy mid-season form. It makes it hard to truly judge the shape the team is in for the run-in ahead.
Timmins and Wishart have been the backbone of the team once again this season, with the lions share of the Stang’s points. Lindal, Clare and Kimlin have unsurprisingly been good additions to the Stangs lineup this season. Robin Vortanov and Liam Dallimore have been welcomed additions from the NZIHL, and Klomp, Girogi, Dawes and all the other regular locals have been contributing well overall. However, it has been a mystery what has happened to Zach Phillips and why he has had to be replaced by Nathan Dunkley. It will take Dunkley some time to settle in but he comes from top pedigree.
Breaking the current slump and returning to regular winnings ways is what is needed for the Mustangs to regain momentum and give themselves the best chances at claiming a third crown.
Newcastle Northstars
Games played: 14
Current position: 5th
Newcastle are the hardest team to predict this season. They have strong local depth in their roster and high quality imports in Drolet, Skachkov, Tallberg and Kubat. Yet they have been up and down in the first half of the season, currently holding onto a mid-table position.
The trajectory however is upwards for the Novocastrians in June. They have won 3 of their past 4 games, all at home. They have 2 more games at home to round out June and if they can sweep, it will put a lot of pressure on those above them to keep them at bay. If you look past June, they are in fact in a run of 6 wins from 7 games. Further showing how they have grown into this season.
I have been enjoying the reunion between Darge and Casey Kubara in Newy this year and the fanfare given to Annesley and Funes. It’s also a welcome sight seeing Riley Klugerman back on the ice and performing well after being injured for almost the entirety of 2024.
Can the Northstars continue to climb into the top half of the table in the second half of the season?
Perth Thunder
Games played: 16
Current position: 3rd
Perth Thunder are at the pointy end of the AIHL standings at the half way point. 2025 sees Perth once again challenging for their maiden title. The Western Australians started the season brightly, but similar to the Mustangs, they have found themselves in a patchy period mid-season.
Perth have a lot of firepower up front, headed by league points leader Yu Hikosaka. Yu’s turned his promising first season with the Thunder in 2024 into a blistering good second season. However, past Yu, Perth have loved spreading the points around their lines and this has been a big part of their success. The likes of Kyros, Breault, Lachowicz, Jones, Berard, Tenosalmi, Johnson and Webster have all contributed over 10 points so far this season.
This 2025 Perth team is a lot bigger and stronger than they have been in past seasons. Hamilton, Johnson, Roach and Jones play a big part in that but it does bring a different dynamic to Perth and make them less predictable and harder to break down.
Like other teams this season, Perth has suffered from injuries and player absences. This roster instability has played havoc on performance consistency. Jones, Woodman and Tenosalmi are big impact players to miss multiple games. I’m told Jones will be back later in the season and I hope the other two will also return. A settled roster will do a world of good for Perth’s chances for breaking their duck in the second half of the season.
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