Melbourne Ice calls the Icehouse home

By Alison Kinkade

Docklands is getting its very own sporting team – Australian Ice Hockey League finalists, Melbourne Ice.

The team late last year adopted a “heads of agreement” to make Docklands’ newest attraction, the Icehouse, its home rink.

The team, which is the only Victoria-based hockey team competing in the Australian Ice Hockey League, signed a three-year agreement in November.

Vice president and team manager, Ian Webster, said the team hoped to continue the arrangement beyond the current deal.

“At this stage it’s for three years but we now see the Icehouse as our home so we hope to continue it,” Mr Webster said.

The team has not yet started training at the Icehouse, but will play its first home game at the rink on May 1 against the Sydney Ice Dogs.

“We're in the hands of the rink management and we can’t use the pucks on the general rink. So we’ll probably have to wait 10 to 12 days from now until we can begin training on the Henke rink,” he said.

Melbourne Ice also hopes that its arrangement with the Icehouse will help strengthen and create an exciting future for the winter game, which currently has 4000 registered players in Australia.

“We’ve had preliminary discussions with the Icehouse about running a five-day high-intensity hockey training camp during the school holidays,” Mr Webster said.

Mr Webster said the first camp would be in July and it would be an ongoing holiday activity.

“We couldn’t organise one for the next holidays because some of the senior players and myself will be in Mexico,” he said.

Melbourne Ice will begin its season in Newcastle on April 24 and will have four import players on the ice every game with two other imports playing for the local league.

“We have six imports and four of these are profession ice hockey players and that is what they do for a living. All are from Canada, bar one who is from the USA,” he said.

Mr Webster is looking forward to being at the Icehouse and said the club would like to encourage and invite people who have never seen a game before to attend.

“The Icehouse going to take us into a new world and attract sponsors and take ice hockey back to Melbourne the way that it use to be. For those who haven’t see a game, you don’t know what you’re missing. The action is akin to a footy field 20 years ago before the rules changed,” he said.

For more information on Melbourne Ice visit http://www.melbourneice.com