by Michael Rozleja
On 18 August 2011 the 5 times AWIHL champions, Adelaide Assassins Women’s Ice Hockey club announce their merger with the AIHL’s Adelaide Adrenaline. To better promote women’s ice hockey here in South Australia and Australia.
The Assassins (now Adrenaline) boast much success on the ice winning five championships in a row and last one in season 2009/10. Now the club is looking to market that success and off the ice with the announcement of their merger with Adelaide Adrenaline.
So what does this mean and how did this come about? I spoke with team member and club marketer Jess Dennis to find out more.
“It came about for a number of reasons, for us personally it is going to us some many more opportunities alongside the men. Co-sponsorship and VIP ticket holders can make an easy transition from the men to the women.” Jess said
“This will hopefully help get more publicity for the women’s team as many people don’t even know we exist.” Jess added.
Jess further went on to say…“The merger came about mostly because we’re trying to build the image of the women’s team and attracting people to women’s ice hockey, women’s sport in general. With so many female teams in male dominated sports, the games are just as exciting but people don’t know about them so don’t get to see them.”
In a move that could potentially see so many positives for the club both on and off the ice, will it be just as positive for women’s hockey in South Australia? Jess believes that it will.
“Yes I really do actually. As much as I love the Assassins name, being under the Adelaide Adrenaline banner more people will know about it and help encourage people to get in and see our games.”
We could be excused to have immediate high expectations of this move as the only AWIHL championship the former Assassins did not win was last season. This was won by the women’s Melbourne Ice outfit, formally the Melbourne Dragons in front of approximately 600 fans.
“A lot of the girls don’t know what to expect yet, this will be our first under the new banner. We don’t know if it will help us this season, but our expectations are that it will help over the next few seasons and help build popularity.” Jess said
Jess also added, “Last year was unfortunate that we lost a lot of key players, half our team was made up of rookies. You can’t expect a rookie team to go up against some of Australia’s greatest ice hockey players and be able to be in the same standard as our previous five championships.” Along with the name and image change and the possible teething problems, the girls are just focused on the job at hand and looking forward to the season ahead.
“Our main focus is on being exceptionally fit, playing hard, playing smart and getting back the trophy we’ve played so hard for every year.” Jess said. It was ultimately a decision that was made by the management board that run both Adrenaline and Assassins, to put in place a more positive and successful strategy in place going forward. “They want us to be just as popular to the crowd as the men’s game and it will benefit both the men’s and women’s leagues going forward. Gaining popularity and community support which will benefit hockey in general.” Jess stated
The 2011/12 season kicks off on Saturday October 22nd at 4:30pm with the Adrenaline women hosting the Brisbane Goannas at Thebarton Ice Arena, then again on Sunday 23rd at 10:00am.
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