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HELLYER LADDER

Team	GP	W	L	PTS
Ice	4	4	0	12
Thunder	6	4	2	12
Bears	4	3	1	9
Mustangs	2	1	1	3
Ice Dogs	5	1	4	3

RURAK LADDER

Team	GP	W	L	OTW	OTL	PTS
Northstars	4	3	0	1	0	11
Lightning	6	3	3	0	0	9
Adrenaline	3	1	1	0	1	4
Brave	6	1	5	0	0	3
Rhinos	4	0	4	0	0	0

SCORING LEADERS

Jeremiah
Addison (PER)

Player	Points
Aiden Wagner (NNS)	18
Wehebe Darge (NNS)	15
francis Drolet (NNS)	15
Zane Jones (PER)	13

GOALIE LEADERS

N Novysedlak (BRE)

1.000

Goalie	SV%
Rhys Pelliccione (PER)	.950
Tatsunoshin Ishida (MIC)	.933
Leo Bertein (PER)	.905
Charles Smart (NNS)	.903

Results go against gallant Adrenaline

Monday, August 18, 2014 - Submitted by Andrew McMurtry

The Adelaide Adrenaline did everything humanly possible to stay in the race for the AIHL Finals but despite taking all six points from the CBR Brave over the weekend, the Adrenaline were knocked out of the finals race, leaving the top four locked in for the last weekend in August.

Entering the weekend knowing that two wins would give the South Australians a fighting chance of reaching the top four, the Adrenaline were relying on the Perth Thunder taking at least one game off the Sydney Ice Dogs, which they were unable to do.

The Adrenaline took it to the Brave over the weekend, winning 5-2 on Saturday and 6-2 on Sunday. After the Saturday game, coach Ryan O’Handley was pleased with the way his special teams worked, scoring a shorthanded goal and two power play goals.

O’Handley was equally full of praise for the Sunday game.

“It was another great effort by the team today,” O’Handley said after the match. “We worked hard for three periods and it paid off once again. We matched lines again tonight and the [Wehebe] Darge line with Josh Harding and Niko [Suoraniemi] shut down their top line again this afternoon.”

Just short of playing 100 games in the AIHL, 22-year old Wehebe Darge was the player to watch, tallying six points over the weekend. O’Handley singled him out as a key, especially on Saturday night, although the Adrenaline coach also said that “when we have won games this year, it has been a team effort”.

“I thought Wehebe Darge was the best player on the ice tonight,” O’Handley said. “He was fantastic in all three zones and he shut down their top line. Mike Will was solid again in goal and Josh Harding was a physical presence out there.”

It’s been a year for the Adrenaline to bring in new players as well with Zach Boyle (12 games, no points), Kayne Fedor (13 games, two goals, three assists) and Remy McGuiness (10 games, two goals, one assist) continuing their development.

“Remy had a great weekend,” O’Handley said after Sunday’s game where McGuinness scored the second last goal of the game. “He is extremely quick and he is starting to develop his game mentally and is solidifying his spot on the team. Remy, Zach Boyle and Kayne Fedor are going to develop into very good players.”

However, the wins over the Brave weren’t enough for the Adrenaline to feature in the playoffs after an eventful year.

“We played seven straight weekends of double headers to start the year and we started having trouble with injuries about week four,” O’Handley said. “That started to hurt us. We started to get healthy after the home stand against the Mustangs and we told the players we would need to win nine of the remaining 12 games to make finals. We won eight of 10 and we were playing well enough that we had real chance of taking six points from the weekend where we had the accident.”

“We were playing our best hockey I have seen us play in a long time during that stretch and I believe we were a good enough team to make the finals this year. We just lost too much ground during the middle part of the season. But I think we can even be better next year. We have some young players who are starting to play to well for us and we have a solid core group.”

While the Adrenaline’s season may be over, O’Handley is the incumbent Australian coach and has an interesting perspective on the teams that will contest for the Goodall Cup in late August.

“The Melbourne Ice is playing the most disciplined hockey of any team right now,” O’Handley began. “They will be tough. The Mustangs are the hardest team to match against as they have three solid forward lines and have a good combination of speed, skill and size in their first two units. The Ice Dogs can just be plain dangerous and can get on top of you very quickly. The Brave have a very good top line. They may not have the depth the other teams have up front, but if you can’t shut down their top unit you will be in trouble.”

“I think the finals will really depend on the order the teams finish and how teams match up against one another. It seems like every team this year has a team they can beat consistently and one that gives them grief. That could factor into the finals. As far as players to watch, seriously there are too many to list. We have a very good league and we have a lot of very good players.”

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