2022 Viking Cup – Thursday/Friday – Sticks and Stones Photography

This year’s Viking Cup hosted by the North Vikings Inline Hockey Club at Gawler, South Australia had a different format than normal. The event for the kids would be divided into 2 separate 2-day formats for Thursday/Friday and Saturday/Sunday. For Thursday and Friday, the under 11 kids (those kids who were 11 years old or under on 01/01/2022) from the Gawler North Vikings and Blackwood Blaze clubs would be mixed together to make up a 3 team “U11B” competition, comprising Flames (red), Ice (blue) and Thunder (yellow) teams. This meant kids would be in teams with kids they would be playing against on the Saturday-Sunday regular club based competition. The same mixed player team format existed for the under 15 kids (as ”U15B” for kids 15 years and under on 01/01/2022), but with 4 teams, comprising the Flames, Fury (green), Ice and Thunder. A gun Aussie Roo 05 player from Bendigo was also included. There would also be a 2 team C grade competition for the “littlies” played on Thursday and Friday. For the Saturday/Sunday club based section exemptions meant that under 11 kids could also play in the under 15 section, notably in Blackwood Beasts members to make up sufficient numbers to enter an under 15 team. In “U11A”, the 3 team competition comprised North Vikings, Blackwood Beasts11A and Blackwood BeastsB (more or less a development team). In ”U15A”, Blackwood Beasts (which had a lot of under 13 players in it) would face Vikings Flames (which had the gun Bendigo Aussie Roo 05 player), Vikings Ice and Vikings Thunder.

For the adults competition, that is for those 16 years and older, the competition existed for the entire 4 days and comprised 7 teams for Division 2 (recreational level), with one team from Bendigo (Bendigo Blaze) and two teams from Blackwood (Benders and Wolves) and the 4 remaining teams from Gawler (Crusaders, Ice D2, Pineapple Express, Wolf Pack). Benders, Wolves and Pineapple Express would top the table after their 4 round robin games. In Division 1 for more serious competition, there were 5 teams, all Gawler based: Chargers, Flying Orangutans, Hooligans, Thunder D1 and Unicorns. The Chargers, Hooligans and Unicorns would top the table after their 4 round robin games. Premier league, as it suggests is the highest competition level was only played on Saturday/Sunday and comprised 4 teams, MaxOut Sports, Outlaws, Longhorns and the Aussie Roos 05 team (which was the under 17 Australian team about to head over to Michigan, USA shortly, and that team included several players playing in the U15 competitions above). Teams in bold won their respective divisions.

The photos in this post feature primarily the U15B Ice games (which team my son played in) with a few other games thrown in.

2022_04_21 U15B game1 Ice v Fury (score 3-11)