The Western Australian Ice Hockey Association, currently trading asIce Hockey WA is the governing body of ice hockey in Western Australia. The Western Australian Ice Hockey Association is a branch of Ice Hockey Australia. The Western Australian Ice Hockey Association was formed as the Western Australian state branch for Ice Hockey Australia. It is responsible for organising the six state leagues across the three different age groups. It is also responsible for selecting the state teams to compete in the national tournaments. WAIHA operates its leagues across three venues – Cockburn Ice Arena, Perth Ice Arena and the Xtreme Ice Arena. Teams are fielded in the leagues by clubs, the Hawks Ice Hockey Club which is based in Cockburn, the West Coast Ice Hockey Association which is based in Malaga, and the Northern Vikings Ice Hockey Club which is based in Mirrabooka. The associations current president is Randy Salmond.
History
1949: The First Ice Rink in Western Australia
On 22 September 1949, a prospectus was written to introduce the first ice rink to Western Australia. The first ice skating rink built in Western Australia was the PerthIce Palais. It was located on Beaufort Street, Northbridge inside the remodeled Tivoli Theatre. The rink was being built by Ice Palais Ltd. and Bruce Carrol was the chairman of directors, who stated that even with the completion date of the rink being weeks away there were already plans by Perth sporting clubs to make ice hockey teams. The rink surface was much smaller than other rinks in Australia at only 29m long and 26m wide. Though private skating lessons first began at 9:00am 12 December 1949, the rink was officially opened at 8:00pm 14 December 1949 by, then, Perth mayor Mr. J. Totterdell. The first manager of the rink was Edson R. Banks. The first competitive ice sport conducted by the Ice Palais Pty LTD was ice basketball and approximately 60 members of the Collegians High Sports Club began training for ice sports, assisted by Mr. H. W. White. The Collegians were the first Perth based ice sports team formed 30 January 1950, and were quickly followed by the formation of a second team called the Western Dodgers the following month. The intention was to train to play ice basketball as the rink surface was too small to play ice hockey on, being less than half of the required length of a standard ice rink. The teams would train every Sunday at the Perth Ice Palais and the Western Dodgers had the help of 2 premiership winning Victorian players, Ray Abbot and Bob Cody, for coaching the first team. The first game of ice basketball in Perth was between two women's teams, the Wildcats and the Bulldogs on 22 May 1950. The men played ice basketball for the first time in the Perth Ice Palais on 13 June 1950 in a game between the Western Dodgers and the Collegians. There was the intention to play ice hockey as well a month later with the Collegians and Western Dogers having already invested a total of £500 in ice hockey equipment combined.
The formation of the first ice hockey association in Western Australia began at the time when a second club joined the Collegians in forming an ice hockey team in February 1950. The original 2 teams that formed the West Australian Ice Hockey Association were:
Collegians
Western Dodgers
The first game of ice hockey in Western Australia was between the Western Dodgers and the Colligians on the evening of 3 July 1950 at 8:30pm. The Western Dodgers won the game by a score of 4 -2. Some of members of the first 2 teams were: Collegians – W. Rossiter, Peter Logan, Brian Strack, D. Whitehead Western Dodgers – Laurie Anderson, R. Cody Shortly after the first game of ice hockey played in Perth a 22 year old recent migrant, Bob Pals, began planning to form a team composed entirely of Dutch migrants. Bob Pals had represented the Netherlands in the 1948 World Amateur Championships held in Montreux, Switzerland. Bob's younger brother was the goaltender for the Netherlands in 11 internationals. Other members of the proposed Dutch team were a 7 time medalist for long distance skating in the Netherlands, Lue Markies; a leading figure and dance skater Louis Kramer; and another member of the national ice hockey team for the Netherlands, Rudi Williams, who also played ice hockey for the Amsterdam Icebergs. There were 3 potential names that were going to be used for this new ice hockey club; the Lions, the Penguins and the Icebergs. The name for the new Dutch migrant ice hockey team was the Penguins, who formed on 28 September 1950 to expand the Association to three teams. When the 1951 ice hockey season began, the West Australian Ice Hockey Association expanded to 4 teams with the addition of a new team called the Magpies.
Leagues
SuperLeague – The top senior league in Western Australia
