2018–19 AWIHL season

The 2018–19 AWIHL season is the 12th season of the Australian Women's Ice Hockey League (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 claimed the double by winning both the premiership title for finishing top of the regular season standings and the Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy championship title by winning the grand final. Sydney Sirens finished runner-up to both titles and the Adelaide Rush 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.
Team 	City 	Arena 	Head Coach 	Captain
Adelaide Rush 	Adelaide 	IceArenA 	Jamie Holland 	
Brisbane Goannas	Brisbane 	Boondall Iceworld 	Matthew Gilpin	Tracy Hocutt
Melbourne Ice 	Melbourne	O'Brien Group Arena 	Marcus Wong 	
Perth Inferno 	Perth 	Cockburn Ice Arena 	Paul Graham 	
Sydney Sirens 	Sydney 	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	Jeff Helbren 	
==League Business==
The AWIHL officially expanded for the first time on 9 August 2018, with the admission of expansion team Perth Inferno from Perth, Western Australia. 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====
October	October 	October	October 	October	October 	October 	October
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
1 	27 October 2018	17:00 	Brisbane Goannas	1–12 	Melbourne Ice	O'Brien Group Arena	
2 	28 October 2018	13:15 	Brisbane Goannas	0–7 	Melbourne Ice	O'Brien Group Arena	
====November====
November	November 	November	November 	November	November 	November 	November
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
3 	3 November 2018 	17:00 	Melbourne Ice 	4–3 	Sydney Sirens	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
4 	4 November 2018 	09:15 	Melbourne Ice 	3–1 	Sydney Sirens	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
5 	10 November 2018	16:00 	Perth Inferno 	11–4 	Adelaide Rush	IceArenA 	
6 	11 November 2018	09:30 	Perth Inferno 	6–0 	Adelaide Rush	IceArenA 	
7 	24 November 2018	16:00 	Brisbane Goannas	3–5 	Adelaide Rush	IceArenA 	
8 	24 November 2018	18:00 	Sydney Sirens 	9–2 	Perth Inferno	Cockburn Ice Arena 	
9 	25 November 2018	07:00 	Sydney Sirens 	8–1 	Perth Inferno	Cockburn Ice Arena 	
10 	25 November 2018	09:30 	Brisbane Goannas	1–2 	Adelaide Rush	IceArenA 	
====December====
December	December 	December	December 	December	December 	December 	December
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
11 	1 December 2018 	16:00 	Sydney Sirens	4–3 (SO)	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
12 	2 December 2018 	07:00 	Sydney Sirens	6–1 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
13 	8 December 2018 	17:00 	Perth Inferno	3–9 	Melbourne Ice 	O'Brien Group Arena 	
14 	9 December 2018 	13:15 	Perth Inferno	1–5 	Melbourne Ice 	O'Brien Group Arena 	
15 	15 December 2018	17:00 	Adelaide Rush	1–6 	Sydney Sirens 	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
16 	16 December 2018	09:15 	Adelaide Rush	0–8 	Sydney Sirens 	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
====January====
January	January 	January	January 	January	January 	January 	January
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
17 	12 January 2019	16:00 	Adelaide Rush	0–3 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
18 	13 January 2019	07:00 	Adelaide Rush	5–6 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
19 	19 January 2019	18:00 	Melbourne Ice	4–8 	Perth Inferno 	Cockburn Ice Arena	
20 	20 January 2019	09:30 	Melbourne Ice	7–2 	Perth Inferno 	Cockburn Ice Arena	
====February====
February	February 	February	February 	February	February 	February 	February
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
21 	2 February 2019 	17:00 	Sydney Sirens 	6–7 	Melbourne Ice 	O'Brien Group Arena 	
22 	2 February 2019 	18:00 	Adelaide Rush 	2–10 	Perth Inferno 	Cockburn Ice Arena 	
23 	3 February 2019 	09:30 	Adelaide Rush 	3–10 	Perth Inferno 	Cockburn Ice Arena 	
24 	3 February 2019 	13:15 	Sydney Sirens 	4–3 (SO)	Melbourne Ice 	O'Brien Group Arena 	
25 	16 February 2019	17:00 	Brisbane Goannas	1–10 	Sydney Sirens 	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
26 	17 February 2019	09:15 	Brisbane Goannas	0–8 	Sydney Sirens 	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
27 	23 February 2019	16:00 	Perth Inferno 	4–3 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
28 	23 February 2019	16:00 	Melbourne Ice 	10–3 	Adelaide Rush 	IceArenA 	
29 	24 February 2019	07:00 	Perth Inferno 	4–2 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
30 	24 February 2019	09:30 	Melbourne Ice 	6–3 	Adelaide Rush 	IceArenA 	
Key:
Winner	Draw
===Standings===
===Player stats===
The season's league leader statistics for skaters and goaltenders.
{| class="toccolours" style="width:25em"	 	 	
Goals	Goals 	Goals 	Goals
No. 	Name 	 	
1 	Christina Julien	Forward	24
2 	Sharna Godfrey 	Forward	16
3 	Bettina Meyers 	Forward	11
4 	Ashlie Aparicio 	Forward	10
5 	Courtney Moulton	Forward	8
{| class="toccolours" style="width:25em"	 	 	
Penalty minutes	Penalty minutes 	Penalty minutes	Penalty minutes
No. 	Name 	 	
1 	Kirsty Venus 	Defender 	30
2 	Isla Malcolm 	Defender 	22
3 	Christina Julien	Forward 	18
4 	Bettina Meyers 	Forward 	18
5 	Courtney Moulton	Forward 	18
===Season awards===
Below lists the 2018–19 AWIHL regular season award winners.
Award 	Name 	Team
Skaters Network Most Valuable Player	Sharna Godfrey 	Sydney Sirens
Best Forward 	Christina Julien	Melbourne Ice
Best Defence 	Amelia Matheson 	Sydney Sirens
Best Goaltender 	Sera Dogramaci 	Sydney Sirens
Nellie Gee Rookie of the Year 	Olivia Last 	Sydney Sirens
==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. 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 Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy.
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 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===
Gold 	Silver 	Bronze
Melbourne Ice	Sydney Sirens	Perth Inferno
==References==
== External links ==
*Australian Women's Hockey League 
*Ice Hockey Australia
Category:Australian Women's Ice Hockey League seasons
Aust