It has been 12 years since the last Australian Women’s National Championship was played and with the resumption of the tournament the ACT Women’s team was one of six teams that travelled to Melbourne to play for National Championship. The tournament was open to players 15+ years old and featured many of the best women’s players in Australia, including National Team players, 2022 U18 National Team players and many AWIHL players. As you can imagine, and many of you saw on the live stream, the standard of play was very high. With the support of IHACT the 17 players selected to represent ACT worked hard to get ready for the tournament with several training sessions and three exhibition games. (Thank-you Vikings and Senators)
ACT started the tournament with an exciting game vs NSW and after 3 periods with the score 2 – 2 we headed to overtime. A fast-paced overtime with chances to score generated by both teams resulted but the score remained tied, and the game was settled with a shootout. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the result were hoping for and NSW took the win and the extra point. In the end that extra point had a huge effect on the final standings to determine who would play for the medals.
ACT next played a very strong and eventual 2022 National Champions Victoria and although ACT eventually lost the game 5 – 0 our team gave a very good account of themselves and pushed Victoria right to the end. Our next game was against Western Australia in a game that could have gone either way but in the end, WA came away with the win.
The team now had to win it’s last two games to make the medal round and in an early morning start ACT faced South Australia and with a solid effort came away with the win. ACT would play Queensland next, needing a win to advance to the medal round. As it turned out the extra point NSW took by winning the shoot out in ACT’s first game meant that if ACT beat Queensland ACT would finish 3rd, ahead of Queensland, and eliminate NSW from the medal round.
ACT’s game against Queensland was an outstanding game with a quick pace, physical play, strong goal tending and two teams that were playing for positioning in the medal round. ACT desperate to finish third and qualify, or be eliminated, and Queensland wanting that third spot so they wouldn’t have to face an undefeated Victoria team in the first game of the medal round. The game was very close and came down to the wire with Queensland taking the win to finish third in round robin play.
Queensland went on to take home the silver medal after losing to Victoria in the finals and after just squeaking into the medal round NSW took home the bronze medal.
The National Women’s Championships was everything you would expect to see when the best players in the country compete against each other. The hockey was a very high quality and a tribute to just how good women’s hockey is in Australia. The players that represented ACT in Melbourne showed that we can compete on a national stage, coming together as a team to play an exciting brand of hockey and demonstrating just how far women’s hockey has come in ACT. Every person on the Women’s team deserves to be congratulated for the role they played on the ACT team, and the how they represented IHACT on and off the ice. With the quality of players, we have on this team and others playing in the ACT in the Women’s League, Sr. C and Sr. B the future of Women’s Hockey in ACT is very bright.