My name's Rob. I played for the Sydney Icemen from 1978 to 1992. The Sydney Icemen had a few name changes during the 14 years that I played. Originally known as St George Flyers then Iceland Saints and then Sydney Icemen. We merged with the Finn Eagles (who we shared Iceland with) to become Sydney Icemen IHC. I played defense all those years and enjoyed every bone crunching minute of it (not mine, theirs). I always wanted to play forward but we had too many forwards and not enough defensemen. Defense is a great position because you can see the game develop and help set up plays (if only we can get forwards to listen to the defense). I played Junior A then Junior B. I stopped playing due to shift work and long hours, that's stupid I know, I should have got a 9 to 5 job then I would have not lost contact with the game. I gave the game up due to having to work weekends.

Our home rink was Iceland in Chalmers St Redfern. Our rink was closed unexpectedly one night. We turned up for training as usual at 10:00pm to be confronted with rangers from the local council taking possession of the rink due to something to do with fire exits or fire regulations. Some say that the rink management failed to carry out some council orders. Anyone with correct information please e-mail me and I will update this.  The rink never opened after that and was quickly reduced to a concrete slab.

Our home rink then became the Narrabeen Ice Rink. Disaster was soon to follow us there as well. The Narrabeen roof supports were made of what looked like laminated ply and was always dripping water. Mounds of frozen water that had dripped from these supports built up on the ice to form ice stalagmites. One night the inevitable happened; The laminated supports delaminated and the roof caved in. Narrabeen Ice rink was shutdown, developers circled and tore the rink down to build their bank accounts.

We then migrated to Blacktown. This became our home rink where we stayed. Blacktown is 30Kms from our original home rink, too far to travel, especially when training ended at 12:30am!

The Sydney Icemen are no longer. I don't know what happened but I heard a bunch of guys quit the team and that was it. With a lack of players no team can survive.

The Sydney Icemen is just a faded memory I have filed away in the recesses of my mind. I had many a fun time with the team. I have often wondered what the old team mates are up to.

Moving on...12 years later...

In 2004 I became aware of the game of hockey again, a sport which I loved and gave all those years to. I took the opportunity to purchase some replacement hockey gear when I was on holidays in the USA. I was staying in Naperville which is west of Chicago. I came across quite a few ice rinks and hockey shops, they were everywhere. I called into a shop called Play It Again Sports. They sold used sporting goods including hockey gear. There were two of these stores a few miles apart. They are franchises. Between the two stores I was able to put together some decent gear for a fraction of the cost of purchasing in Australia. The staff who served me were not very helpful or knowledgeable with regards to hockey. I decided that they knew little of hockey when one guy referred to the stick as a "hockey club" and another didn't know what stick tape and but-ends were.

I came back to Australia keen to get back on the ice. A quick search of the Internet and Sydney hockey club websites gave me enough information to start to call up clubs to find out what the go is to get back into hockey. It wasn't very clear what I had to do. No one seemed to be all that interested in explaining what the present hockey situation is and who I have to see to get back into it. Only one person was helpful and they were one of the contacts from the Macquarie Bears Ice Hockey Club. Most of the local hockey websites have contacts who don't answer their phones or return calls and emails. Some of their websites are not maintained very well, a far cry from something that promotes their club or a tool that could offer any useful information at all. That is the reason why I decided to put this site together. I want to make it a useful tool that anyone can come to to find out about the game of hockey and who to speak to depending on their skill level. It will also contain a maintained list of contacts to speak to regarding their local clubs, rinks, and coaching.

I turned up to a drop-in game at Erina a few months ago. It was fun. It's like riding a bike, although the air in the tyres are a bit low. Just need to get a bit fitter. Anyway I'm looking at getting a bit of coaching/training to get back into it again and I'll be playing summer 2005. See you on the ice.