The ‘Rematch of the Century’ has been run & won & what an event it was. As a major event in our 100 year celebration, the game of the century was An absolute success and VICTORIA WON ! Just like back in 1909 the Mighty Vics beat arch rivals NSW in a thrilling & fitting finale 4 – 3 with a Goal right on the siren to send them back over the border crushed! Of course they weren’t too crushed as all the players were Victorians.
The re-match was played in fantastic spirit, in front of a very enthusiastic & loyal crowd, both teams filled with our legends & superstars through the ages.
A huge thank you to our players - what an exhibition.
Our pre 1950 players were Russell Jones, Basil Hansen, Bob Blackburn, Robbie Stevenson, Russell Poste, Liam Liu, Charlie Grandy, Gary Hood, Graham Rowe, Jim McLauchlan & Graham White. What a collection, what a history.
Our post 1950 born players were Gary Croft, Sandy Gardner, Alan Robins, Paul Rice, Paul Doney, Richard Motteram, Greg Hansen, Paul McCorquadale, Brad Cunningham, Paul Watson & Terry Theobald. So much talent.
Our Current Goodall players included Michael McDowell, Vinnie Hughes, Darren Croft, Sean Jones, Mitch Jones, Glenn Grandy, Alan Moss, Doug Stevenson, Shayne Hardy & Troy Robertson.
Our Goaltenders were Doug Dow & Bruce Poling, Alain Giaugue & Andrew Crowther.
To all the players thank you for the time warp, thank you for the great hockey and thank you for the exhibition.
Of course these events don’t happen without the support of the entire Hockey Community & I would also like to sincerely thank firstly our ‘On-ice officials’. They were, Martin Jones, Kim Kyung-Jin, Mitch Waters, Tim Bell, Daniel Harry, Kate McQueen, Grainge Phillips, David Rama Jnr & Chris Wong.
Our off ice officials were, Billy Buck, Colleen Nash, Shirley Geraghty & Shelley Fitzpatrick.
Thank you all sincerely,we are very appreciative.
Of course we also had three very special guests drop the puck for us at the start of the periods & they were Jylon Grandy (Glenn Grandy’s son and Charlies grandson), Ebony Rama (Dave Rama Snr’ s daughter and Dave Rama Jnr’s sister) & Dylan Hellier (Shayne Hardy & Troy Robertson’s nephew). It was great to have these young & future hockey players be a part of this celebration.
Lastly, to the hard workers behind the scenes. A huge thank you to John Belic & Christine James for their energy & hours of effort to get this all together. To the centenary committee Billy Buck, Maureen Black,
Geri Skillicorn, Chris Parton thank you all very much.
I would also like to especially thank our secret weapon in these Centenary celebrations - Ross Carpenter. Ross is responsible for our Centenary banner design, the Rematch of the century poster & hours & hours of historical research which has been such a great assistance in our ongoing collection of Ice Hockey’s history in Victoria. Ross thank you sincerely from IHV.
Andy McDowell
President
Ice Hockey Victoria
