BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — It’s a frequent — and most often frantic — high-pitched yell when kids playing street hockey in North America know their game is about to be interrupted.
“Car!” screams one of the players, and the nets at either end of the makeshift asphalt or cement “rink” are quickly — and most often begrudgingly — pulled to the side of the road to allow a vehicle to pass. Then the nets are back on the street and play with the often tattered hockey sticks and a battered tennis ball resumes — at least until the next car approaches.
If the National Hockey League has its way, youth in Australia — where it’s common to see cricket being played in parks and on quiet streets — will soon have an opportunity to do the same with a variation of North American street hockey.
The NHL, attempting to build on its first foray into the Southern Hemisphere with two preseason games between the Los Angeles Kings and Arizona Coyotes on Saturday and Sunday in Melbourne, is expanding its NHL Street Hockey program to Australia.
The program is designed for children ages 6 to 16. The North American version has incorporated various aspects of previously successful NHL club programs in non-traditional hockey markets such as Las Vegas, Nashville and Tampa, Florida.
Although Australia fits the non-traditional hockey market, Mark Black, the NHL’s vice president of international operations, told The Associated Press that the league feels it’s a long-term viable market.
“There is an interesting history of hockey in Australia and a lot of passion there for all sports,” Black said in a telephone interview. “It may be a smaller market, but there is a lot of knowledge.”
The NHL’s plan Down Under will be to use the upcoming year to pilot the program within a selection of interested local schools in Victoria state, with a focus on the Melbourne area. It will then attempt to expand it across the country by mid-2024.
While ice hockey in Australia is definitely non-traditional, it’s been around for a while, and has a profile.
The semi-professional Australian Ice Hockey League has 10 teams, made up of a lot of expatriate and some former pro players, and it completed a 26-game schedule this season.
Ice hockey has a surprising 120-year history in Australia. The first rink in Australia was the Glaciarium Ice Palace in Adelaide, South Australia where the first games of “bandy” were played using field hockey sticks with a ball on the ice.
In 1904, a notice at the Glaciarium asked for skaters to express their interest “in the introduction of a new form of amusement on the ice.” So hockey on ice, unlike its distant field hockey cousin which is played outdoors on grass or artificial turf and with a slew of different rules, equipment and styles — no serious contact among competitors, for the most part — was born.
And field hockey in Australia has plenty of street cred. The men’s Kookaburras and women’s Hockeyroos have won numerous Olympic medals and World Cup or world championship titles.
Organized hockey games featuring more North American rules started when ice rinks opened up a few years later in 1906 in Melbourne and Sydney. It’s had its dry spells, particularly with the fledgling domestic league over the past 20 years.
Australian ties to the NHL are somewhat distant.
