Melbourne Glaciers

Melbourne Glaciers
Melbourne Glaciers
City	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
League	Australian Junior Ice Hockey League
Founded	18 September 2012
Home arena	O'Brien Group Arena
Colours	(2012–13) ; ; (2013-present) ;
Owner(s)	Victorian Ice Hockey Association
General manager	Sean McConville
Head coach	Michael Flaherty
Captain
Franchise history
2012–2013	Melbourne Red Wings
2013-present	Melbourne Glaciers
Championships
Regular season titles	2 (2013), (2016)
AJIHL Championships	1 (2018)
	Current season

The Melbourne Glaciers are an Australian junior ice hockey team based in Melbourne, Victoria playing in the Australian Junior Ice Hockey League. They represent one of the two junior ice hockey teams from Victoria currently playing in the AJIHL, which is the most elite level for ice hockey at a national level for ages between 16 and 20 years old.

History

AJIHL

The Melbourne Red Wings were founded 18 September 2012 following the announcement by Ice Hockey Australia of the formation of the Australian Junior Ice Hockey League.^[1] The team is controlled by the Victorian Ice Hockey Association.^[1] On 14 October 2012 it was announced that Warren Porter had signed on as coach for the 2012–13 AJIHL season with Michael Flaherty as his assistant.^[2]

The first team in club history:

For the 2012–13 AJIHL season^[2]^[3]

#	Name	Pos	Date of Birth	Acquired
10	Dylan Black	F	11 January 1992	2012
3	Peter Colosimo	D	28 March 1996	2012
4	Chris Fahy	D	27 January 1993	2012
5	Nikolaos French	F	26 September 1996	2012
15	Liam Hayes	D	30 November 1995	2012
8	Daniel Hotriem	F	26 April 1993	2012
6	Brendan Knox	F	29 July 1993	2012
7	Brendan McDowell	F	12 March 1992	2012
20	James McKendrick	G	28 April 1993	2012
19	Damian Pandolfo	D	10 March 1995	2012
14	Kurt Payne	F	13 September 1994	2012
18	Thomas Roberts	D	1 April 1993	2012
11	Matt Stringer	F	4 May 1993	2012
9	Julius Vitikka	F	28 June 1992	2012
2	Daniel Williams	D	30 June 1992	2012

AJIHL Expansion

The follow-up season in the Australian Junior Ice Hockey League saw a lot of change via expansion and renaming of its existing teams. The Melbourne Red Wings were renamed the Melbourne Glaciers on 22 August 2013.^[4]^[5] The changes were made in response to the National Hockey Leagues concern about the AJIHL using their team names and logos but also recognised the opportunity to create a new history for the teams through creating their own identity.

In October 2013 the league expanded to six teams with two teams from Perth, the Sharks and the Pelicans, joining for the start of the 2013–14 season.^[6]

Logo and Uniform

2012-2013 Melbourne Red Wings

In their first year, and the inaugural AJIHL season, the Melbourne Red Wings wore a uniform that resembled the NHL namesake Detroit Red Wings. The jersey design and uniform bore close resemblance to the Detroit Red Wings design, with the AJIHL logo used for shoulder crests.^[7]

2013-present

On 22 August 2013 it was announced that the Melbourne Red Wings would change their name to the Melbourne Glaciers, which avoided the close resemblance with the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL after the NHL had made complaint about a breach of copyright and it also allowed the team to develop its own brand identity.^[8]

The renaming to Melbourne Glaciers was carefully chosen to reflect Australia's rich hockey culture. The name Glaciers is a tribute to the Melbourne Glaciarium,^[8] which was the first place that an ice hockey game was played in Australia on Tuesday 17 July 1906.^[9] The Melbourne Glaciarium was also home to one of the original 4 ice hockey teams in Australia called the Glaciarium, who were founded as part of the formation of the Victorian Ice Hockey Association (VIHA) in 1908.^[10]

On 13 September 2013, the new Melbourne Glaciers logo design and branding was created by Ross Carpenter and his son, Jack Carpenter, who was largely involved in the creation of the uniform design.

The suggestion to use Glaciers as a new name for the Melbourne Red Wings was made by Michael Flaherty and the reasoning behind it was to honor the Melbourne Glaciarium, the location of the first game of ice hockey game played in Australia. The league made the decision to continue using a predominantly red jersey and provided a limit of 4 colors. The decision to use red as a base colour is thought to honor their patron of the time, Basil Hansen, who first played for the VIHA Red Arrows in 1947. The colors used were charcoal grey, a blue-grey and white to create a palette with glacial coloring.^[11]

Melbourne Glaciers logo as of 13 September 2013. Designed by Ross and Jack Carpenter.

The team logo is a stylised representation of a deeply crevassed glacier, grinding its way down around snow-capped peaks, while the half-round (Diocletion) window of Melbourne Glaciarium and a speeding puck symbolize the birthplace of the Australian game.
— Ross Carpenter

^[11]

The Glaciers nameplate design sprang from that kind of gothic blackletter script that somehow looks at home with icy peaks, pick axes and frozen rivers. This first rink at the main gateway to Melbourne was "the oldest rink in the Empire" by 1939. Although long gone, it was the cradle of national ice sports, and it seems fitting that its spirit can live on here in the red jersey worn by successive generations of Victoria's most promising junior players.
— Ross Carpenter

^[11]

The Melbourne Glaciarium was situated on the bank of the Yarra River, facing Melbourne city which is currently referred to as South Gate. When it was built in 1906 it was the third largest ice arena in the world and seated 2000 patrons, though peak attendance could see up to 5000 patrons in the venue at one time.^[11]

Season by season results

Season	GP	W	OTW	OTL	L	GF	GA	PTS	Finish	Playoff
2012–13	14	8	0	1	5	47	41	25	1st	Won semi-final vs. Melbourne Blackhawks, 7–3 Lost finals series vs. Sydney Maple Leafs, 1–2

Players

Current roster

For the 2016–17 AJIHL season

#	Name	Pos	Date of Birth	Acquired
2	Timothy Breedveld		30 October 1996	2016
4	Corey Stringer	D	10 August 1997	2013
6	Tim Vanderwolf	F	1 May 1998	2014
7	Harrison Jaunozols	F	19 September 1997	2016
8	Edwin Johnstone	F	3 June 1999	2015
10	Gavin Birchler	D	25 October 1998	2014
11	David Foster	F	6 February 1997	2013
12	Fintan Paisley-Gunn		9 April 2000	2016
13	Taras Cheprakov	D	18 January 1996	2016
14	Bryan Birchler	D	6 June 1996	2015
15	Jacob Haley	D	13 July 1999	2015
16	Simeon Lira		22 December 2000	2016
18	Elijah West-Testa		22 February 1999	2016
1	Michael Breedveld	G	24 December 1999	2016

Captains

The first team Captain for the Melbourne Red Wings in the inaugural year for the AJIHL was Brendan McDowell, his Alternate Captains were Matt Stringer and Chris Fahy.^[12]

2012–13 Brendan McDowell (C), Matt Stringer (A), Chris Fahy (A)
2013–14 Mitch Humphries (C), Jack Carpenter (A), Daniel Szalinski (A)
2015–16 Caleb Butler (C), Corey Stringer (A), David Foster (A)
2016–17 Corey Stringer (C), David Foster (A), Taras Cheprakov (A)

Head coaches

The first Head Coach for the Melbourne Red Wings in the inaugural year for the AJIHL was Warren Porter.^[12]

2012–13 Warren Porter
2013–14 Warren Porter
2014–15 Douglas Stevenson
2015–16 Douglas Stevenson
2016–17 James Galdes
2018–19 Michael Flaherty
2019–20 Michael Flaherty

References

^ ^a ^b Hewitt, Andrew (20 September 2012). "AJIHL Teams Announced". Hewitt Sports Network. Archived from the original on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 22 September 2012.
^ ^a ^b Hewitt, Andrew (14 October 2012). "AJIHL rosters finalised". Hewitt Sports Network. Archived from the original on 2 April 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2012.
^ "Melbourne Red Wings". Pointstreak Sports Technologies. Retrieved 20 October 2012.
^ "Formerly the Sydney Maple Leafs". Sydney Wolf Pack. 25 September 2013. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
^ "Coaches Welcome the Sydney Sabres". Sydney Sabres. 25 September 2013. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
^ "AJIHL National Junior League Kicks Off in Perth". Ice Hockey WA. 21 October 2013. Archived from the original on 26 February 2014. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
^ Hewitt, Andrew. "Wings Secure Maximum Points in Melbourne". Retrieved 17 September 2015.
^ ^a ^b Macdougall, Andrew (22 August 2013). "New look for Melbourne and the AJIHL". On the Fly Hockey. Archived from the original on 18 February 2014. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
^ "International Hockey Match at the Glaciarium - America vs. Australia". Punch (Melbourne). 19 June 1906. Retrieved 30 August 2015.
^ "Jack Carpenter's Victoria A Brief History of Ice Time". Legends of Australian Ice - Jack Carpenter's Victoria A Brief History of Ice Time. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Carpenter, Ross (18 September 2013). "AJIHL Jersey Design". Ice Hockey Victoria. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
^ ^a ^b Hewitt, Andrew. "AJIHL Rosters Finalised". Retrieved 17 September 2015.