Australian Ice Hockey League

And this doesn't solely fall on them, but...

Just coming back to the fact that this whole idea of literally, the only comparison I know of this is in North American and actually in the Australian Ice Hockey League, where the whole purpose of it is to make sure that three points are still given out on the day, and then you split the points two and one, so the team that wins the shootout still actually gets to have a winning prize to take home.

Now, football is a sport that naturally has draws, right? You know, it just doesn't really compute.

It's not, I think, the right way to be innovative.

Well-deserved.

They should very much enjoy their period as the most successful team in AIHL history.

Yes, so let's get into our game.

It was a game that in the pre-game introductions, I think you could have been led to believe that it was going to be a blowout for the Canberra Brave.

You get one early, you've got a lead against a team that no one, no one was, you know, in the media or whoever, thought that you had even a chance against.

You thought it was going to be a blowout game, and here you are, Friday night, preliminary final.

up 3-2 against the most successful team in the AIHL of the last decade.

I thought that was a fantastic moment that's going to stick with me for a long time.

The update comes as Canberra sports continue to battle for suitable indoor venues, and the AIS Arena attracts more interest as a premier venue for sport, music and entertainment.

The Bruce Arena recently hosted an entire season of sell-out Australian Ice Hockey League games for the Canberra Brave between May and August, then for October 17 until late January, the Capitals will host WNBL Basketball.

Originally, both events were planned to be held at the AIS Arena in October 2026, with the expectation that the venue would be able to support the competition requirements and that costs would remain broadly similar to previous years, the ACT Gymnastics letter read.

Unfortunately, a few key things have changed.

That's the motivation and that momentum the boys certainly carried into the weekend just gone.

And what I can say from sort of sitting just on the outside of the actual team itself, having been in Melbourne a few times on both sides of the fence, both Northies and for the AIHL, Our boys were super disciplined, super respectful in knowing that they had a job to do, where most teams you see will, they won't go out on the town all night, but there's a bit of partying on, end of season celebrations.

Our entire squad, they'd come out for dinner, have the quickest of bites to eat.

that either head straight back to their room for rest and recoup or down to the rink to see who we would be playing or who would be going through to the next round, but then back to bed.

We've got a couple other comments on here before we move on.

Question is, what are we going to do for the next three months with no AIHL or just have to watch the NHL? You can watch the NHL, Darren, but there was a very good answer a bit further down from Lisa to say get on the AWIHL, which, yeah, that's going to be amazing.

The

strength of the women year on year and the growth of the growth of ticket sales, the growth of the team, like in, in a dub year on year, it's is phenomenal.

I

think it's –

and as long as – you know, AIHL have been a lot more transparent this year than in previous years.

And so, obviously, going forward, if those things happen, obviously make sure – I don't know how.

So the Rampage started, I guess, mid-2019.

And prior to that, there was ventures to try to get the AIHL back to Brisbane for a long time.

And they all sort of just fell off the wagon a little bit, never got any momentum, this and that.

Come mid-2019, we said, let's get serious, put a group together, and conversations really started to happen.

We were going to next level maybe once a month or something like that and getting everyone involved and having some sort of very loose, informal meetings of what we wanted to do.

And How are we all going to do it? And so, yeah, it sort of gained a lot of traction.

We started with AIHL Brisbane and we sort of launched that and the response was really overwhelming.

So then we built on that.

We are so proud.

The Australian Ice Hockey League final series got underway on Friday.

If you're not across it, so the Brave travelled to Melbourne.

There was the first game on Friday.