The 2023–24 AWIHL season is the 15th 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 28 October 2023 until 10 March 2024. Five teams competed in 40 regular season games followed by 4 playoff games, making up the AWIHL Finals weekend. The Perth Inferno claimed the Gower Memorial Shield premiership title, their maiden title, for finishing top of the regular season standings. 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 their eighth

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.

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 ...

collected silver with

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 bronze. Defending champions, the

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 ...

, claimed the wooden spoon.

Teams

In 2023–24 the AWIHL had five teams from five Australian state capital cities competing, stretching east to west of the continent.

League Business

Ahead of the 2023–24 season, IceHQ's Melbourne Ducks announced their bid to join the AWIHL. The official AWIHL gameday schedule was released in early September 2023. The season structure was amended from 2022 to 2023, with each team now playing eight home and eight away games for a total of sixteen games over the regular season. An increase from the previous six home and away games. The trophy for the Premiership, winners of the regular season, was also amended in 2023. The Gower Memorial Shield replaced the previous Premiers trophy, the Stephanie Boxall Trophy. In late September, the AWIHL broadcast partner, Clutch.TV, went into administration and ceased all operations. The league was left little time to look for a new broadcaster for season 2023–24. On 24 October, the AWIHL announced a deal with Sportscast Australia to become the league's new broadcast partner for season 2023–24. A few days later the AWIHL and Sportscast Australia launched AWIHL.TV to deliver region-unlocked live and on-demand streaming of all regular season and finals games on a custom built website and

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. In January 2024, the AWIHL announced player equipment rule changes and a new equipment supplier agreement with Skaters Network. Neck laceration protective equipment was made mandatory, bringing the league into policy alignment with Ice Hockey Australia (IHA) and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). The deal with Skaters network, also covers sponsorship of player of the month and end of season player awards.

Exhibition games

To support the Melbourne Ducks application to join the league, the AWIHL approved the team to setup an exhibition series against existing AWIHL teams, including the Sydney Sirens, Melbourne Ice and Adelaide Rush, during season 2023–24. The

also arranged a pre-season exhibition against a select team from their sponsor Wayward Brewing Company

Regular season

Fixtures & results

Running between 28 October 2023 and 25 February 2024, the AWIHL regular season consisted of 40 games in total, with teams playing 16 games each. Game 34 of the regular season was first postponed and then cancelled by the AWIHL following a

carbon monoxide poisoning Carbon monoxide poisoning typically occurs from breathing in carbon monoxide (CO) at excessive levels. Symptoms are often described as " flu-like" and commonly include headache, dizziness, weakness, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion. Large ...

incident at Adelaide’s IceArenA. At least 42 people, including players from both AWIHL teams, were treated for poisoning with dozens hospitalised by the incident. The LPG gas-powered

Zamboni An ice resurfacer is a vehicle or hand-pushed device for cleaning and smoothing the surface of a sheet of ice, usually in an ice rink. The first ice resurfacer was developed by American inventor and engineer Frank Zamboni in 1949 in Paramount, ...

was identified as the source of the leak that led to the poisoning. The game was declared a tie with each team awarded one point 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 2023–24 AWIHL regular season league award winners. Below lists the 2023–24 AWIHL regular season Hockey Hype Australia 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 2023–24, the Inferno, Rush, Ice and Lightning qualified for the finals weekend. The event was held on the weekend of 9–10 March 2024 in host city

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

O’Brien 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. Perth and Melbourne won the semi-final games on Saturday to progress to the grand final on Sunday. The defeated teams, Adelaide and Brisbane, progressed to the bronze medal game on Sunday. In the third-place play-off, the Adelaide Rush defeated the Brisbane Lightning to clinch the bronze medal. In the grand final, the regular season Premiers were defeated in an upset to the Melbourne Ice. The surprise victory for the Ice saw them hoist the Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy for a record setting eighth time. After the grand final, Danielle Butler, of the Melbourne Ice, was named AWIHL Finals MVP.

Semi-finals

Third place playoff

Final

References

External links

Australian Women's Hockey LeagueIce Hockey Australia
{{DEFAULTSORT:2023-24 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 ...