Sydney Ice Dogs

Sydney Ice Dogs
2016 AIHL season
City Liverpool, New South Wales
League Australian Ice Hockey League
Founded 2002
Operated 2002-present
Home arena Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink
Colours

Burgundy, Bondi Blue, Cadmium Orange and White

                   
General manager Australia Anthony Wilson
Head coach Australia Tim Flynn
Captain Australia Brian Funes
Website http://www.icedogs.com.au/
Franchise history
2002–2009 Western Sydney Ice Dogs
2009–present Sydney Ice Dogs
Championships
Regular season titles 1 (2013)
Conference Championships 0
Goodall Cups 2 (2004, 2013)

The Sydney Ice Dogs are a semi-professional ice hockey team in the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL). The team was founded in 2002 as the Western Sydney Ice Dogs but changed its name to Sydney Ice Dogs in 2009. The club plays its home games at the Liverpool Catholic Club’s ice rink in New South Wales, a suburb of south-western Sydney.

History

The Ice Dogs (along with the Melbourne Ice and Newcastle North Stars) were part of a three-team expansion to the AIHL in 2002, joining the original teams Adelaide Avalanche (who disbanded in 2008), Canberra Knights and Sydney Bears.

Ice hockey in Western Sydney goes back to 1981, when the Blacktown Flyers were a foundation member of the New South Wales Superleague. While lasting for thirteen seasons, this league struggled to gain stability and folded, to be reborn in 1994 as the ECSL, however it too would be disbanded in 2000 with Western Sydney having no representative in the newly formed AIHL.

The region returned to the national ice hockey map in 2002 when the Ice Dogs joined the AIHL. John Wilson, owner of the Blacktown Ice arena funded the team and Anthony Wilson (his son) captained, managed and recruited for the team. The teams' first season was a success despite missing the semi-finals, finishing third out of six teams. It was not enough to make the finals, however, as a four-team playoff series would not be introduced until the 2003 season.

Backing up their strong poerformance in 2002 the Ice Dogs again finished third in 2003. They did however go one step better as they reached the Goodall Cup final by defeating the second-placed Adelaide Avalanche. The Ice Dogs went down in the championship match, losing 4-1 to Newcastle. The ice Dogs would have their revenge in 2004, as both teams again squared off for the Goodall Cup and the Ice Dogs won 3-1 on the back of instrumental performances by 18-year-old goaltender Gabriel Robledo and star import players John Heinen and Martin Jesk. A healthy rivalry between the Ice Dogs and the North Stars arose from these two back to back championship games.

At the start of the 2009 season the team was renamed to "Sydney Ice Dogs", dropping the Western part of the title.[1] The club rebranding coincided with the complete redesign and re-launch of the club's website early in the 2009 season. Updated news and feature articles were a regular offering via the dedicated blog named, "Give a Dog a Blog". In 2010, the website promises of a new section for video highlights of home games tentatively named 'Ice Dogs TV'.

On 24 April 2014 the Sydney Ice Dogs head coach Ron Kuprowsky and his assistants Colin Downie and Brad Andrlon had resigned from their positions.[2] The club appointed Dion Dunwoodie as interim head coach with Mark Page and Anthony Wilson as his assistants.

On 9 May 2014 the Ice Dogs signed Andrew Petrie as their new head coach to replace the departed Ron Kuprowsky.[3] However following the conclusion of the 2014 AIHL season Andrew left his position as head coach of the Ice Dogs with one year remaining on his contract to take up the head coach position at AIHL and NSW rival club Newcastle North Stars.[4]

9 February 2015, the Ice Dogs via the AIHL announced the club had opted to play two home matches for the 2015 AIHL season against the CBR Brave in Canberra as opposed to Liverpool, Sydney. Both matches to occur in August and travel arrangements for Ice Dogs fans would be made due to the scheduling changes.[5]

28 February 2015, the Sydney Ice Dogs announced the appointment of Danish coach Anders Jespersen as their new head coach for the 2015 AIHL season. Anders linked up with the Ice Dogs following his spell as head coach of the Oman national team.[6][7]

Season by season results

Season GP W T1 OTW2 OTL2 L GF GA PTS Finish Playoff
2002 15 8 1 – – 6 54 48 17 3 Did not qualify
2003 7 4 0 – – 23 38 24 8 3 Won semi-finals vs. Adelaide Avalanche
Lost in Goodall Cup final vs. Newcastle North Stars, 4–1
2004 19 11 0 0 2 6 92 71 32 2 Won semi-finals vs. Sydney Bears, 5–4
Won Goodall Cup final vs. Newcastle North Stars, 3–1
2005 26 11 1 2 2 10 105 110 40 3 Lost in semi-finals vs. Newcastle North Stars
2006 28 18 – 1 0 9 95 82 56 3 Lost in semi-finals vs. Adelaide Avalanche, 2–5
2007 28 10 – 7 1 10 105 93 42 6 Did not qualify
2008 28 15 – 4 1 8 126 91 54 2 Won semi-finals vs. Melbourne Ice, 2–1
Lost Goodall Cup final vs. Newcastle North Stars, 1–4
2009 24 10 – 1 2 11 87 90 34 5 Did not qualify
2010 24 4 – 0 3 17 74 120 15 7 Did not qualify
2011 28 17 – 2 0 9 124 90 55 3 Lost in semi-finals vs. Newcastle North Stars, 2–5
2012 24 12 – 1 2 9 96 99 40 2
(Bauer Conference) 		Lost in semi-finals vs. Melbourne Ice, 2–6
2013 28 18 – 3 1 6 117 80 61 1 Won semi-finals vs. Melbourne Ice, 4–2
Won Goodall Cup final vs. Newcastle North Stars, 6–3
2014 28 14 – 2 1 11 116 97 47 4 Lost semi-finals vs. Melbourne Mustangs, 4–6
2015 28 0 – 1 0 27 39 209 04 8 Did not qualify
1 As of the 2006 AIHL season, all games will have a winner.
2 OTW and OTL include shootout wins and shootout losses respectively.
3 One of these losses was a double points game which would give the total of seven games played.[8]
4 The Ice Dogs were fined three competition points for multiple breaches by-law 4 which requires teams to travel with at least 15 players unless an exemption has been granted.[9]

Championships

Goodall Cup: 2004, 2013

Roster

Team roster for the 2016 AIHL season[10][11]

2015 AIHL Sydney Ice Dogs Roster
# Nat Name Pos S/G Age Acquired Birthplace
19 Canada Strat Allen F R 28 2015 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
10 Australia Brentin Azzopardi D L 17 2016 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
30 Australia Jake Burgess G L 21 2015 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
22 Australia Ellesse Carini F L 17 2016 Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia
9 Australia Scott Clemie F L 21 2015 Scunthorpe, England
14 Australia Dunwoodie, DavidDavid Dunwoodie F R 30 2016 Hamilton, New Zealand
11 Hungary Dávid Harmati D R 27 2015
27 Canada Harvey, KevinKevin Harvey F L 31 2015 Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
12 Australia Adam Kimbley F L 27 2015 Wingham, New South Wales, Australia
7 Australia Bayley Kubara D R 17 2016 Wombarra, New South Wales, Australia
4 Australia Ilman Lee D R 22 2015 Seoul, South Korea
8 Australia Manco, TomasTomas Manco D L 28 2016 Brezno, Czechoslovakia
Australia Zachary McCoy D L 2016
Australia Cian O'Reilly F R 20 2016
13 Australia Daniel Pataky D L 20 2015 Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia
21 New Zealand Remy Sandoy D R 23 2016 Auckland, New Zealand
1 Australia Charlie Smart G L 19 2016 Perth, Western Australia
17 Australia Cameron Smith F L 18 2015 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
16 Australia Jarrod Smith D R 21 2015
20 Australia Kane Spence F R 24 2015 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
29 Australia Stephenson, ScottScott Stephenson (C) F R 30 2016 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
18 Australia Stephenson, ToddTodd Stephenson F R 27 2016 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
23 United Kingdom Paul Swindlehurst D L 22 2016 Blackrod, England
74 Canada Grant Toulmin F R 27 2016 Langley, British Columbia, Canada
15 Australia White, AndrewAndrew White D L 32 2016 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Broadcasting

TV:
Fox Sports - Part of the entire AIHL TV deal with Fox Sports to show one game a round, nomrally on Thursday's at 4:30pm or after NHL games during NHL season.[12]
DGB Media Group - 9 January 2015 the Ice Dogs announced that DGB will produce a half hour highlights program for all Ice Dogs home games for the 2015 AIHL season that will be televised free-to-air on TVS (Television Sydney) Channel 44.[13]

References

  1. ↑ "Same teams new identity". AIHL. Retrieved 27 April 2009.
  2. ↑ MacDougall, Andrew (2014-04-24). "Ron Kuprowsky and Sydney Ice Dogs part ways". On the Fly Hockey. Archived from the original on 2014-05-24. Retrieved 2014-05-24.
  3. ↑ McMurty, Andrew (2014-05-08). "Experienced Petrie joins Ice Dogs as head coach". Australian Ice Hockey League. Archived from the original on 2014-05-24. Retrieved 2014-05-24.
  4. ↑ osland, Georgia (2014-10-07). "Garry Dore Steps Down and Appoints Former Sydney Ice Dogs Coach Andrew Petrie as Newcastle North Stars Ice Hockey Coach for 2015". Newcastle Star. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  5. ↑ "Schedule changes for the Bears and Ice Dogs". Ice Hockey News Australia. 2015-02-10. Retrieved 2015-02-10.
  6. ↑ "Ice Dogs appoint Jespersen as new Head Coach". www.icehockeynewsaustralia.com. 2015-03-03. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  7. ↑ "ICE DOGS MEDIA RELEASE: HEAD COACH SIGNED 2015 SEASON". Sydney Ice Dogs. 2015-02-28. Retrieved 2015-07-31.
  8. ↑ "2003 AIHL Statistics". Ice Hockey Australia. Archived from the original on 9 April 2010. Retrieved 9 April 2010.
  9. ↑ "Ice Dogs docked points for by-law breach". Australian Ice Hockey League. 2015-07-28. Archived from the original on 2015-08-02. Retrieved 2015-08-02.
  10. ↑ "Sydney Ice Dogs". Elite Prospects. Retrieved 2016-05-01.
  11. ↑ "Sydney Ice Dogs". Australian Ice Hockey League. Retrieved 2016-05-01.
  12. ↑ Brodie, Will (2013-04-17). "Ice hockey gets pay TV boost". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2015-04-18.
  13. ↑ "Sydney Ice Dogs reach deal with DGB Media Group". www.icehockeynewsaustralia.com. 2015-01-09. Retrieved 2015-07-31.

External links

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