2017–18 AWIHL season

The 2017–18 AWIHL season is the 11th season of the Australian Women's Ice Hockey League (AWIHL). It ran from 28 October 2017 until 18 March 2018. Four teams competed in 24 regular season games followed by 4 playoff games, making up the AWIHL Finals weekend. The Sydney Sirens claimed the premiership title for finishing top of the regular season standings, while the Melbourne Ice claimed the Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy championship title by winning the grand final. Melbourne finished runner-up in the season standings while Sydney lost the grand final. Adelaide Rush came last in the regular season and claimed the wooden spoon.
==Teams==
In 2017–18 the AWIHL had four teams from four Australian state capital cities competing, stretching across the east coast and southern Australian mainland. Perth Inferno was added as an exhibition team only for the 2017–18 season, as they looked to meet criteria set down by the AWIHL Commission to be granted a full licence for 2018–19.
Team 	City 	Arena 	Head Coach 	Captain
Adelaide Rush 	Adelaide 	IceArenA 	Josef Rezek 	Ashley Pelkey
Brisbane Goannas	Brisbane 	Boondall Iceworld 	Terry Kiliwnik 	Veronica Watson
Melbourne Ice 	Melbourne 	O'Brien Icehouse 	Marcus Wong 	Shona Powell
Sydney Sirens 	Sydney 	Macquarie Ice Rink	Troy Morgan 	Amelia Matheson
Exhibition teams	Exhibition teams	Exhibition teams 	Exhibition teams	Exhibition teams
Perth Inferno 	Perth 	Cockburn Ice Arena	Paul Graham 	
==League Business==
The official AWIHL gameday schedule was released at the start of September 2017. The season structure remained unchanged from 2016-17, each team competing in a four game series against each other team, playing two games at home and two games away. Looking to become the first AWIHL expansion team, Perth Inferno, was admitted to the league on a provisional licence to play two exhibition games against the Sydney Sirens. The first of these two exhibition games, at Canterbury Olympic Ice Rink, was to be live streamed by Thought Fox Media Group with commentary by Eric Brookes. Ahead of the season, the AWIHL announced the continuation of their sponsorship agreement with Skaters Network in November 2017. The agreement would continue the company’s status as preferred equipment supplier to the AWIHL and the naming rights holder for the player of the month award. Ice Hockey Australia also announced the establishment and go-live of the league's new website, hosted on the Ice Hockey Australia's website, it contains separate pages for each team, news, history and is linked to the eSportsdesk website that contains all information on games, players, scores and stats. Every AWIHL game of the 2017-18 season would be live streamed on the new website. In December 2017, AWIHL commissioner, Melissa Rulli, announced the league had secured a event assistance grant under the Victorian Government's Significant Sporting Events Program, to host the AWIHL Finals weekend in Melbourne at O'Brien Group Arena.
==Regular season==
===Fixtures and results===
Running between 28 October 2017 and 4 March 2018, the AWIHL regular season consisted of 24 games in total, with teams playing 12 games each, 4 games (2 home and 2 away) against each opponent. There additionally was two exhibition games scheduled for Sydney in February 2018 between the Sydney Sirens and prospective expansion side Perth Inferno. The Sirens won both games comfortably against the exhibition Perth team, scoring sixteen goals and conceding five.
====October====
October	October 	October	October 	October	October 	October 	October
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
1 	28 October 2017	17:00 	Adelaide Rush 	2–6 	Sydney Sirens	Canterbury Olympic Ice Rink 	
2 	28 October 2017	17:00 	Brisbane Goannas	0–2 	Melbourne Ice	O'Brien Group Arena 	
3 	29 October 2017	10:00 	Adelaide Rush 	4–9 	Sydney Sirens	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
4 	29 October 2017	13:15 	Brisbane Goannas	1–6 	Melbourne Ice	O'Brien Group Arena 	
====November====
November	November 	November	November 	November	November 	November 	November
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
5 	11 November 2017	16:30 	Brisbane Goannas	3–2 (SO)	Adelaide Rush	IceArenA 	
6 	12 November 2017	10:00 	Brisbane Goannas	2–4 	Adelaide Rush	IceArenA 	
7 	18 November 2017	17:00 	Sydney Sirens 	3–0 	Melbourne Ice	O'Brien Group Arena	
8 	19 November 2017	11:15 	Sydney Sirens 	4–2 	Melbourne Ice	O'Brien Group Arena	
====December====
December	December 	December	December 	December	December 	December 	December
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
9 	2 December 2017 	16:30 	Melbourne Ice 	3–2 	Adelaide Rush	IceArenA 	
10 	3 December 2017 	10:00 	Melbourne Ice 	7–4 	Adelaide Rush	IceArenA 	
11 	9 December 2017 	17:00 	Brisbane Goannas	1–2 	Sydney Sirens	Canterbury Olympic Ice Rink 	
12 	10 December 2017	10:00 	Brisbane Goannas	0–4 	Sydney Sirens	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
====January====
January	January 	January	January 	January	January 	January 	January
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
13 	13 January 2018	16:00 	Sydney Sirens	10–4 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
14 	13 January 2018	17:00 	Adelaide Rush	1–9 	Melbourne Ice 	O'Brien Group Arena	
15 	14 January 2018	07:30 	Sydney Sirens	4–0 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
16 	14 January 2018	15:15 	Adelaide Rush	1–8 	Melbourne Ice 	O'Brien Group Arena	
====February====
February	February 	February	February 	February	February 	February 	February
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score 	Home 	Location 	Recap
17 	3 February 2018 	16:00 	Adelaide Rush	2–1 (SO)	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
18 	4 February 2018 	07:30 	Adelaide Rush	3–7 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld 	
19 	10 February 2018	17:00 	Melbourne Ice	4–0 	Sydney Sirens 	Canterbury Olympic Ice Rink 	
20 	11 February 2018	10:00 	Melbourne Ice	0–6 	Sydney Sirens 	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
EX 	17 February 2018	17:00 	Perth Inferno	4–8 	Sydney Sirens 	Canterbury Olympic Ice Rink 	
EX 	18 February 2018	10:00 	Perth Inferno	1–8 	Sydney Sirens 	Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink	
21 	24 February 2018	16:30 	Sydney Sirens	2–4 	Adelaide Rush 	IceArenA 	
22 	25 February 2018	10:00 	Sydney Sirens	7–0 	Adelaide Rush 	IceArenA 	
====March====
March 	March 	March	March 	March	March 	March 	March
Game #	Date 	Time 	Away 	Score	Home 	Location 	Recap
23 	3 March 2018	16:00	Melbourne Ice	0–1 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld	
24 	4 March 2018	07:30	Melbourne Ice	6–2 	Brisbane Goannas	Boondall Iceworld	
Key:
Winner	Exhibition game
===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 	Stephenie Cochrane	Forward	15
2 	Jessica Pinkerton 	Forward	14
3 	Sharna Godfrey 	Forward	11
4 	Christina Julien 	Forward	11
5 	Natalie Ayris 	Forward	11
{| class="toccolours" style="width:25em"	 	 	
Penalty minutes	Penalty minutes 	Penalty minutes	Penalty minutes
No. 	Name 	 	
1 	Rylie Ellis 	Defender 	33
2 	Nicole Jones 	Forward 	24
3 	Tracy Hocutt 	Forward 	24
4 	Kirsty Venus 	Defender 	22
5 	Sharnita Crompton	Forward 	18
===Season awards===
Below lists the 2017–18 AWIHL regular season award winners.
Award 	Name 	Team
Skaters Network Most Valuable Player	Stephanie Cochrane	Sydney Sirens
Best Forward 	Ashley Pelkey 	Adelaide Rush
Best Defence 	Erin Beaver 	Sydney Sirens
Best Goaltender 	Keesha Aitkins 	Adelaide Rush
Nellie Gee Rookie of the Year 	Marnie Pullin 	Melbourne Ice
==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 2017–18, the Adelaide Rush, Sydney Sirens, Brisbane Goannas and Melbourne Ice qualified for the finals weekend. The event was held on 17 and 18 March 2018 in host city Melbourne at O’Brien Group Arena. On Saturday, Sydney won the first semi final in a high scoring affair against Adelaide. In the second semi-final, the Melbourne Ice made light work of Brisbane to advance to the grand final. On Sunday, first up, the Goannas won a close contest against the Rush to secure bronze medals for the Queenslanders. In the grand final, Melbourne Ice secured their record equaling sixth championship title and lifted the Joan McKowen Memorial Trophy, after defeating the Sydney Sirens 4–2, with Jessica Pinkerton scoring all four goals for the winners.
===Semi-finals===
===Third place playoff===
===Final===
Gold 	Silver 	Bronze
Melbourne Ice	Sydney Sirens	Brisbane Goannas
==References==
== External links ==
*Australian Women's Hockey League 
*Ice Hockey Australia
Category:Australian Women's Ice Hockey League seasons
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