The 2018–19 AWIHL season is the 12th season of the

Australian Women's Ice Hockey League The Australian Women's Ice Hockey League (AWIHL) is 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 sanctioned by Ice Hockey Au ...

(AWIHL). It ran from 27 October 2018 until 10 March 2019. Five teams competed in 30 regular season games followed by 4 playoff games, making up the AWIHL Finals weekend. 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 ...

claimed the double by winning both the premiership title for finishing top of the regular season standings and 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 Septe ...

championship title by winning the grand final.

Sydney Sirens The Sydney Sirens (commonly referred to as the Sirens) are an ice hockey team based in Sydney, Australia. The Sirens compete in the Australian Women's Ice Hockey League (AWIHL). The AWIHL is the top tier national league in the country for wome ...

finished runner-up to both titles and the

Adelaide Rush The Adelaide Rush is an Australian amateur ice hockey team from Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 2005 as the Adelaide Assassins, the Rush, who were also known as the Adrenaline for four years, have been a member of the Australian Women's Ic ...

claimed the wooden spoon.

Teams

In 2018–19 the AWIHL had five teams from five Australian state capital cities competing, stretching east to west of the continent.

League Business

The AWIHL officially expanded for the first time on 9 August 2018, with the admission of expansion team

Perth Inferno The Perth Inferno is an amateur ice hockey team based in Perth, Western Australia. The team is a member of the Australian Women's Ice Hockey League (AWIHL), the highest level of women's ice hockey in Australia. The team was founded by Ice Hock ...

from

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. The official AWIHL gameday schedule was released at the end of August 2018. The season structure had changed from 2017–18 thanks to the addition of a fifth team, with each team now playing two of the four opponents in a four-game series with the other two teams being played twice during the season.

Regular season

Fixtures & results

Running between 27 October 2018 and 24 February 2019, the AWIHL regular season consisted of 30 games in total, with teams playing 12 games each.

October

November

December

January

February

Key:

Standings

Player stats

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

Season awards

Below lists the 2018–19 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 examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...

. 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 2018–19, the Inferno, Sirens, Goannas and Ice qualified for the finals weekend. The event was held on 9 March to 10 March 2019 in host city

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

at the IceArenA. Sydney and Melbourne won the semi-finals on Saturday by comfortable margins to advance to the Joan McKowen grand final. On Sunday Perth defeated Brisbane in the third place playoff to finish their maiden season third with bronze medals. Melbourne beat Sydney to claim the championship title and lift the Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy for a record seventh time.

Semi-finals

Third place playoff

Final

References

External links

Australian Women's Hockey League

Ice Hockey Australia
{{DEFAULTSORT:2018-19 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 in North America) 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. Tw ...