2022 NZWIHL season

The 2023 NZWIHL season is the ninth season of the New Zealand Women's Ice Hockey League (NZWIHL). It ran from 12 August 2022 until 25 September 2022. Four teams competed in 12 regular season games followed by 4 playoff games, making up the NZWIHL Finals weekend. The Wakatipu Wild claimed the double by winning both the premiership title for finishing top of the regular season standings and the championship title by winning the grand final. Canterbury Inferno finished runner-up to both titles and the Dunedin Thunder claimed the wooden spoon. 
==Teams==
In 2022 the NZWIHL had four teams, consisting of one from the North Island and three from the South Island.
Team 	City 	Arena 	Head coach 	Captain
Auckland Steel 	Auckland 	Paradice Avondale 	Jeff Boehme 	Helen Murray
Canterbury Inferno	Christchurch	Alpine Ice Centre 	Matthew Sandford	Bridie Gibbings
Dunedin Thunder 	Dunedin 	Dunedin Ice Stadium 	Barrett Wilson 	Abbey Heale
Wakatipu Wild 	Queenstown 	Queenstown Ice Arena	Colin McIntosh 	Kellye Nelson
==League Business==
The league was on the agenda at the New Zealand Ice Hockey Federation (NZIHF) annual general meeting (AGM) in February and November 2022. The NZIHF confirmed they had underwritten team travel expenses in 2022 in order to ensure the 2022 season could be played, given the disruption and early end to the 2021 season. The league had been focusing on improving social media delivery for 2022. The updated league events manual was released in July 2022, ahead of the season commencing. 
==Regular season==
Running between 12 August 2022 until 18 September 2022, the NZWIHL regular season consisted of 12 games in total, with each team playing six games.
===Fixtures & results===
2022 regular season	2022 regular season	2022 regular season	2022 regular season	2022 regular season	2022 regular season	2022 regular season 	2022 regular season
Game # 	Date 	Time 	Home 	Score 	Away 	Location 	Recap
1 	12 August 2022 	18:45 	Wakatipu Wild 	5–0 	Canterbury Inferno 	Queenstown Ice Arena	
2 	13 August 2022 	15:30 	Dunedin Thunder 	5–7 	Auckland Steel 	Dunedin Ice Stadium 	
3 	13 August 2022 	18:45 	Wakatipu Wild 	1–2 (OT) 	Canterbury Inferno 	Queenstown Ice Arena	
4 	14 August 2022 	10:00 	Dunedin Thunder 	4–7 	Auckland Steel 	Dunedin Ice Stadium 	
5 	3 September 2022 	16:30 	Canterbury Inferno 	4–0 	Dunedin Thunder 	Alpine Ice Centre 	
6 	3 September 2022 	16:30 	Auckland Steel 	0–3 	Wakatipu Wild 	Paradice Avondale 	
7 	4 September 2022 	16:30 	Canterbury Inferno 	2–0 	Dunedin Thunder 	Alpine Ice Centre 	
8 	4 September 2022 	16:30 	Auckland Steel 	3–6 	Wakatipu Wild 	Paradice Avondale 	
9 	16 September 2022 	18:45 	Wakatipu Wild 	15–1 	Dunedin Thunder 	Queenstown Ice Arena	
10 	17 September 2022 	16:30 	Canterbury Inferno 	7–5 	Auckland Steel 	Alpine Ice Centre 	
11 	17 September 2022 	18:45 	Wakatipu Wild 	3–1 	Dunedin Thunder 	Queenstown Ice Arena	
12 	18 September 2022 	16:30 	Canterbury Inferno 	1–5 	Auckland Steel 	Alpine Ice Centre 	
Key:
Winner	Draw
===Standings===
===Player stats===
The season's league leader statistics for skaters and goaltenders.
{| class="toccolours" style="width:23em"	 	 	
Points	Points 	Points	Points
No. 	Name 	 	
1 	Kellye Nelson 	Fwd 	19
2 	Jasmine Horner-Pascoe	Fwd 	18
3 	Lova Holmqvist 	Fwd 	16
4 	Anjali Mulari 	Fwd 	11
5 	Gina Davis 	Fwd 	9
===Season awards===
Below lists the 2022 NZWIHL season award winners.
Award 	Name 	Team
Most Valuable Player 	Lova Holmqvist 	Wakatipu Wild
U18 Most Valuable Player 	Caitlin Hollyer 	Wakatipu Wild
Best Forward 	Jasmine Horner-Pascoe	Auckland Steel
Best Defence 	Jaime Jones 	Auckland Steel
Best Goaltender 	Sierra Morgulis 	Canterbury Inferno
Sports Person of the Year	Abbey Heale 	Dunedin Thunder
==NZWIHL playoffs==
The top four teams in the NZWIHL regular season qualify for the NZWIHL playoffs. The playoffs is held on a single weekend and uses New Zealand conventions of being called Finals. The playoff system used by the NZWIHL 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. Th winner of the grand final is awarded a trophy and the top three teams are awarded gold, silver and bronze medals at the conclusion of the grand final. The NZWIHL also uses this time to announce team and league season awards.
In 2022, all four teams in the league qualified for the finals weekend. The event was held on the weekend of 24 and 25 September 2022 in host city Dunedin at Dunedin Ice Stadium. On day one, first placed Wakatipu Wild played fourth placed Dunedin Thunder in the first semi-final game and won comfortably. Second placed Canterbury Inferno ensured the top two seeds progressed to the grand final with a five goals to two victory over the Auckland Steel in semi-final two. On Day two of the Finals weekend, Auckland played hosts Dunedin for the bronze medal. Both teams made a number of changes including goaltenders and it was the Steel who defeated the Thunder and claimed bronze. In the grand final, the Wild successfully shutout the Inferno to claim their first ever NZWIHL championship title in their second full season since their formation in 2020. 
===Semi-finals===
===Third place playoff===
===Final===
Gold 	Silver 	Bronze
Wakatipu Wild	Canterbury Inferno	Auckland Steel
==References==
== External links ==
*New Zealand Women's Hockey League
*New Zealand Ice Hockey Federation
* Elite Prospects league profile
NZL
ice hockey