This year’s Viking Cup hosted by the North Vikings Inline Hockey Club at Gawler, South Australia had a different format than normal. After having played in mixed up combined teams on Thursday-Friday now the kids were back in their club teams. 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, due to many regular older kids not participating in the tournament. 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.
2022_04_23 Beasts11B v Vikings11 (score 3-18)
2022_04_23 Ice15 v Beasts15 (score 6-1)
2022_04_23 Div2 Crusaders v Bendigo Blaze (score 4-3)
2022_04_23 Beasts11A v Beasts11B (score 13-3)
2022_04_23 Flames15 v Beasts15 (score 14-0)
2022_04_23 Div2 Benders v Bendigo Blaze
2022_04_24 Thunder15 v Beasts15 (score 16-2)