The 2017–18 AWIHL season is the 11th season of the

Australian Women's Ice Hockey League The Australian Women’s Ice Hockey League (AWIHL) is Australia, Australia’s top-tier women’s ice hockey league. Established in 2005 as Australia’s first women’s national league, the AWIHL has amateur sports, amateur status and is sancti ...

(AWIHL). It ran from 28 October 2017 until 18 March 2018. Four teams competed in 24 regular season games followed by 4 playoff games, making up the AWIHL Finals weekend. The Sydney Sirens claimed the premiership title for finishing top of the regular season standings, while 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 Lea ...

claimed the

Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy The Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy is the annually awarded championship trophy, of the Australian Women's Ice Hockey League (AWIHL), to the winner of the AWIHL finals. Originally donated in 1995, the trophy is named after Joan McKowen who died Sept ...

championship title by winning the grand final. Melbourne finished runner-up in the season standings while Sydney lost the grand final. Adelaide Rush came last in the regular season and claimed the wooden spoon.

Teams

In 2017–18 the AWIHL had four teams from four Australian state capital cities competing, stretching across the east coast and southern Australian mainland. Perth Inferno was added as an exhibition team only for the 2017–18 season, as they looked to meet criteria set down by the AWIHL Commission to be granted a full licence for 2018–19.

League Business

The official AWIHL gameday schedule was released at the start of September 2017. The season structure remained unchanged from 2016-17, each team competing in a four game series against each other team, playing two games at home and two games away. Looking to become the first AWIHL expansion team, Perth Inferno, was admitted to the league on a provisional licence to play two exhibition games against the Sydney Sirens. The first of these two exhibition games, at Canterbury Olympic Ice Rink, was to be live streamed by Thought Fox Media Group with commentary by Eric Brookes. Ahead of the season, the AWIHL announced the continuation of their sponsorship agreement with Skaters Network in November 2017. The agreement would continue the company’s status as preferred equipment supplier to the AWIHL and the naming rights holder for the player of the month award.

Ice Hockey Australia The Australian Ice Hockey Federation, currently trading as Ice Hockey Australia (IHA), is the official national governing body of ice hockey in Australia and is a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation. It was first established in 190 ...

also announced the establishment and go-live of the league's new website, hosted on the Ice Hockey Australia's website, it contains separate pages for each team, news, history and is linked to the eSportsdesk website that contains all information on games, players, scores and stats. Every AWIHL game of the 2017-18 season would be live streamed on the new website. In December 2017, AWIHL commissioner, Melissa Rulli, announced the league had secured a event assistance grant under the

Victorian Government The Victoria State Government, also referred to as just the Victorian Government, is the state-level authority for Victoria, Australia. Like all state governments, it is formed by three independent branches: the executive, the judicial, and ...

's Significant Sporting Events Program, to host the AWIHL Finals weekend in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

O'Brien Group Arena 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.

Regular season

Fixtures and results

Running between 28 October 2017 and 4 March 2018, the AWIHL regular season consisted of 24 games in total, with teams playing 12 games each, 4 games (2 home and 2 away) against each opponent. There additionally was two exhibition games scheduled for Sydney in February 2018 between the Sydney Sirens and prospective expansion side Perth Inferno. The Sirens won both games comfortably against the exhibition Perth team, scoring sixteen goals and conceding five.

October

November

December

January

February

March

Standings

Player stats

The season's league leader statistics for skaters and goaltenders.

Season awards

Below lists the 2017–18 AWIHL regular season award winners.

Joan McKowen playoffs

The top four teams in the AWIHL regular season qualify for the Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy playoffs. The playoffs is held on a single weekend and uses Australian conventions of being called

Finals Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

. The playoff system used by the AWIHL is a four team single game semi-finals and grand final system where the semi-final winners progress to the grand final and the losers playoff for third place. Semi-finals are played on the Saturday and the third place playoff and grand final is played on the Sunday. The prize for being crowned AWIHL Champions for winning the grand final is the

. In 2017–18, the Adelaide Rush, Sydney Sirens, Brisbane Goannas and

qualified for the finals weekend. The event was held on 17 and 18 March 2018 in host city

at O’Brien Group Arena. On Saturday, Sydney won the first semi final in a high scoring affair against Adelaide. In the second semi-final, the Melbourne Ice made light work of Brisbane to advance to the grand final. On Sunday, first up, the Goannas won a close contest against the Rush to secure bronze medals for the Queenslanders. In the grand final, Melbourne Ice secured their record equaling sixth championship title and lifted the Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy, after defeating the Sydney Sirens 4–2, with Jessica Pinkerton scoring all four goals for the winners.

Semi-finals

Third place playoff

Final

References

External links

Australian Women's Hockey League

Ice Hockey Australia
{{DEFAULTSORT:2017-18 AWIHL season Australian Women's Ice Hockey League seasons

Aust Aust is a small village in South Gloucestershire, England, about north of Bristol and about south west of Gloucester. It is located on the eastern side of the Severn estuary, close to the eastern end of the Severn Bridge which carries the M48 ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...