The 2012 AIHL season is the 13th

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

of the

Australian Ice Hockey League The Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) is Australia's top-level men's ice hockey league. Established in 2000, the AIHL is sanctioned by Ice Hockey Australia (a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation). The AIHL is a Semi-professional ...

(AIHL). It ran from 28 April 2012 until 26 August 2012, with the Goodall Cup finals following on the 1 and 2 September. The Newcastle North Stars won the H Newman Ried Trophy after finishing the regular season with the most points. The

Melbourne Ice The Melbourne Ice is an Australian semi-professional ice hockey team from Melbourne, Victoria, based at the Icehouse in the Docklands precinct of central Melbourne. Founded in 2000, the Ice have been a member of the Australian Ice Hockey Leag ...

won the Goodall Cup for the third year in a row after defeating the North Stars in the final.

Teams

In 2012 the AIHL had 9 teams competing in the league.

League business

During the off-season the

announced that

Perth Thunder The Perth Thunder is an Australian semi-professional ice hockey team from Perth, Western Australia. Founded in 2010, the Thunder have been a member of the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) since 2012. The Thunder are based at the Perth Ice Are ...

had been accepted as a full member of the league expanding the competition to nine teams. The Mustangs IHC changed their name to the Melbourne Mustangs after the AIHL lifted a condition that prohibited the use of "Melbourne" in their team name. The restriction was originally put in place to protect the brand of the Melbourne Ice. It was also announced that from 2012 the league would be split into two conferences in order to manage costs and length of the season. The two conferences where named the Bauer Conference and Easton Conference after the AIHL signed a three-year deal with the Skaters Network who is the distributor of the ice hockey brands

Bauer Hockey Bauer Hockey LLC is an American manufacturer of ice hockey equipment, fitness and recreational skates and apparel. Bauer produces helmets, gloves, sticks, skates, shin guards, pants, shoulder pads, elbow pads, hockey jocks and compression under ...

and Easton Hockey. The Bauer Conference will consist of the Canberra Knights, Newcastle North Stars,

Sydney Bears The Sydney Bears (formerly ''Macquarie Bears'') is an Australia, Australian semi-professional ice hockey team from Sydney, New South Wales. Established in 1982, the Bears are the only remaining founding member of the Australian Ice Hockey League ...

, and the

Sydney Ice Dogs The Sydney Ice Dogs (formally ''Western Sydney Ice Dogs'') is an Australian semi-professional ice hockey team from Sydney. Formed in 2002, the Ice Dogs are a member of the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL). The Ice Dogs are two time Goodall Cu ...

, while the Easton Conference includes the Adelaide Adrenaline, Gold Coast Blue Tongues,

, Melbourne Mustangs and the Perth Thunder. Following the announcement of the conference system a change in the finals playoff structure was also announced. The winners of each conference at the end of the regular season would play in a semi-final against the runner-up of the opposing conference with the winners of the semi-finals progressing to the Goodall Cup final. It was also announced a one-year partnership with

Virgin Australia Virgin Australia, formerly known as Virgin Blue, is an Australian airline based in Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of two active airlines (the other being Virgin Atlantic) to use the Virgin Group, Virgin brand, as well as the larger by fleet ...

in which the airline would become the leagues preferred supplier for the 2012 season. In February 2012 the Sydney Bears announced that they were leaving the

Penrith Ice Palace The Penrith Ice Palace (also known as Penrith Ice Rink.) was an ice sports and public skate centre, located west of Sydney in Penrith, New South Wales, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia. It permanently closed on Wednesday 29 June 2022. It se ...

as their home arena and were returning to play their games at the

Sydney Ice Arena Sydney Ice Arena was an ice sports and public ice skating centre, located in Norwest, New South Wales. It hosted a number of major events, including Australian Ice Hockey League games. A development application was submitted by property owne ...

Baulkham Hills Baulkham Hills (;) is a suburb in the Hills District, New South Wales, Hills District of Greater Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located within north-west of the Sydney central business district mostly within the Loca ...

where they had previously played from 2003 to 2006. In April 2012 the AIHL announced that the Sydney Ice Dogs would be restricted to the dress of only three import players per game, as opposed to the normal four. The restriction is part of the penalties imposed on the club after it breached the AIHL code of conduct during the 2011 Goodall Cup final series in which a player and two team officials were involved in an assault of a

Medibank Icehouse The Icehouse (also currently known as O'Brien Icehouse due to naming rights) is an Australian ice sports and entertainment centre, located in the Docklands precinct of Melbourne, in Victoria, Australia. Prior to the start of the regular season, three exhibition games were held. The first game was held between the Mustangs and the Melbourne Ice at the Medibank Icehouse with the Mustangs winning the game 5–2. The second and third games were played between the Sydney Bears and the Sydney Ice Dogs, with the Sydney Bears winning the first game 5–2 and the Sydney Ice Dogs winning the second game 5–4 in a shootout. On 3 June, Gold Coast Blue Tongues' home game against the Melbourne Ice at Bundall Iceland was called off after a shortened first period due to an unplayable surface; it was the second such cancellation in less than a year at Bundall Iceland, with 10 July 2011 match between the Blue Tongues and Sydney Ice Dogs cancelled without play for the same reason. After the cancelled game, Gold Coast was evicted from the rink by its owners, and on 8 June, it was announced that its remaining seven home games for the season would be played at Iceworld in Acacia Ridge, Brisbane; the matches will begin at 10:30pm, with a better time unable to be negotiated with the rink due to the short notice of the relocation. Although Melbourne was offered a win by forfeit for the cancelled match, the club agreed instead to reschedule the match to Thursday 23 August, to be played in Melbourne (although technically a Gold Coast home game). During July there will be a weeks break for the first Trans-Tasman Champions League. The formation of the Trans-Tasman Champions League was announced back in August 2011 between the AIHL and the

New Zealand Ice Hockey League The New Zealand Ice Hockey League (NZIHL) is New Zealand's top-level ice hockey league. Established in 2005 by Guenther Birgel, the NZIHL is sanctioned by New Zealand Ice Hockey Federation (a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation). T ...

(NZIHL). The series will feature two teams from each the AIHL and the NZIHL each playing the others once with the winner being the team who finishes first in the round-robin standings. The two teams chosen from each league will be the 2011 regular season champions and the winner of the 2011 playoffs. In a situation where the winning of both events is the same the runner up of the playoff final will be selected to represent their respective league.

Player transfers

Regular season

The regular season will start on 28 April 2012 and will run through to 26 August 2012 before the teams compete in the playoff series. The Gold Coast Blue Tongues' final seven home games were relocated from Bundall, Gold Coast to Acacia Ridge, Brisbane after the cancelled match on 3 June. All relocated matches were scheduled to commence at 10:30pm, and the dates of some of the matches were adjusted to accommodate the away teams' travel plans. The Newcastle North Stars won the H Newman Reid Trophy after finishing the regular season with the most points, 52. On 29 August the AIHL released the list of finalists for the 2012 awards. Matt Armstrong of the Melbourne Ice, Jeremy Boyer of the Newcastle North Stars, Perth Thunder's Kenny Rolph and Sydney Bears' Tomas Landa were nominated for the Most Valuable Player award, with Boyer and Landa both winning the award. Aaron Barton of Adelaide Adrenaline, Anthony Kimlin of the Gold Coast Blue Tongues and Perth Thunder's Kiefer Smiley were nominated for the Top Goaltender award with Anthony Kimlin being named the winner. Adam Blanchette of the Blue Tongues, Scott Levitt of the Melbourne Mustangs and Newcastle's Rob Lawrance were nominated for the Top Defenceman award with Rob Lawrance being announced as the winner. George Huber of the Adrenaline, Greg Bay of the Blue Tongues, the Mustangs' Brendan McDowell and Perth's David Kudla were all nominated for the Rookie of the Year award with George Huber and Greg Bay tying for the win.

April

May

June

July

August

Standings

Bauer Conference

Easton Conference

Source
/small>

Statistics

Scoring leaders

List shows the ten top skaters sorted by points, then goals.

Leading goaltenders

Only the top five goaltenders, based on save percentage with a minimum of ten games played.

Season awards

Below lists the 2012 AIHL regular season award winners. Source
/small>

Goodall Cup playoffs

The 2012 playoffs started on 1 September 2012, with the Goodall Cup final being held on 2 September. Following the end of the regular season the top two teams from each conference advanced to the playoff series with the winner of each conference playing in the semi-final round against the runner-up of the other conference. All three games were held at the

Hunter Ice Skating Stadium The Hunter Ice Skating Stadium is an ice sports and public skate centre, opened in 2000 and located in Warners Bay, a suburb of Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia. The stadium serves as the home ice rink of the Newcastle Northstars w ...

Warners Bay, New South Wales Warners Bay is a suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, Australia, and is located from Newcastle's central business district on the eastern side of Lake Macquarie. It is often regarded as a part of the Greater Newcastle distr ...

, the home of the Newcastle North Stars. The series was a single game elimination with the two winning semi-finalists advancing to the Goodall Cup final. The

completed the ''

three-peat In sports (especially in North America), a three-peat is winning three consecutive championships or tournaments. The term, a portmanteau of the words ''three'' and ''repeat'', originated with the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Ass ...

'' and won the Goodall Cup for the third year in a row after defeating the Newcastle North Stars in the final. Todd Graham of the Melbourne Ice was named the finals MVP. All times are UTC+10:00

Semi-finals

Final

References

External links

The Australian Ice Hockey League
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aihl Season 2012 2012 in ice hockey 2012 in Australian sport

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