Early Days
While the beginnings of ice sports in Australia can be traced to 1904 and the nation’s first ice rink in Adelaide, the first bona fide game of ice hockey was played in July 1906 when a Victorian representative side took on a team of visiting American sailors from the USS Baltimore at the Melbourne Glaciarium.
The contest presented a variation of the codified Canadian format: two fifteen-minute halves, a red ball made from gutta-percha, and curved heavy-headed sticks as used in English field hockey. The teams consisted of six men per side and the result was a 1-1 draw.
The hosts leveraged their home-ice advantage to force a draw with the more practiced & proficient Baltimores National Library of Australia
Ice Hockey matches between Victoria and New South Wales commenced shortly after the opening of the Sydney Glaciarium (1907-1955), with a match in August 1907 that pre-dated the formation of the state associations. The two states contested the first national women’s tournament in 1922 — a distant but important forerunner to the first Australian Women’s Championship in 1988.
'Among the oldest in the world'
Australia’s ice hockey association was formed in Melbourne in September 1908 after the close of the Melbourne Glaciarium’s winter season. The Victorian Amateur Ice Hockey Association (VAIHA) consisted of four foundation clubs: Brighton, the Beavers, the Melburnians, and inaugural champions Glaciarium.
Based around their respective Glaciariums, ice hockey clubs in Melbourne and Sydney constituted a thriving feature of the early sports landscape in Australia, with the sport characterised by a robust rivalry between NSW and Victoria for possession of the Goodall Cup. 1923 saw the landmark formation of a central Australian body for the first time, an era when players began receiving equipment from Canada or sourcing customised protective gear from local manufacturers.
The first junior ice hockey competition in Australia was proposed and organised in 1926. The junior national team’s first appearance at the World Junior Championships came in 1983.
