Selected photos from the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) game between the Adelaide Adrenaline and arch rivals the 2025 AIHL Champions Melbourne Ice played on 21/06/2026 at the Ice Arena, Adelaide, South Australia. Cale Dolan, recently over injury, returned to the net for the Adrenaline. For the Ice up the other end was Tatsunoshin Ishida. The Ice had recently acquired the much experienced veteran Simon Despres who had a wealth of NHL experience with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Anaheim Mighty Ducks as well AHL, KHL, Germen DEL, Austrian ICEHL and Great Britain’s EIHL, and also international player for Team Canada! His imposing size and experience would be one to watch. After the 3-2 shock loss to the Adrenaline the night before the Ice were looking for blood!
Playing with confidence from the night before, the Adrenaline again were matching the Ice’s fast paced game. Ice’s captain Mackenzie Caruana receiving a 4min major penalty for high-sticking to the face (making contact). Then a sickening check was landed on Adrenaline’s Jake Riley by Ice’s Johnny Aonso sending Riley headfirst into the boards. He would receive a 5min major plus 20min game misconduct while Riley was taken off the ice for medical treatment and eventually to hospital (we wish him well). With the 5-on-3 advantage the Adrenaline patiently passed the puck around looking for a chance and then Austin Pickford slotted it past Ice goaltender Ishida to put the Adrenaline 1-up (assists Nathaniel Benson, Coy Prevost). With the Adrenaline still having a 5-on-3 powerplay due to the major penalties to Ice players, Kolby Johnson fired a rocket past Ishida and the Adrenaline were now 2-0 early in the game (assists Coy Prevost, Julian Friederich). A holding penalty to Daniel Koudelka for holding at 7:18 did not result in a change to the scoreline. Shots on goal for the period: Ice 15, Adrenaline 13. Adrenaline goaltender Cale Dolan was in fine form again, thwarting shot after shot from the Ice.
Adrenaline’s Steve Best received a holding the stick penalty at 11:51 but there was no change to the score. It took until the 8:43 mark in the 2nd period before the Ice posted their first goal of the game, to Jed Lake (assists Jamie Bourke, Tyrone Bronte). At the stoppage Adrenaline’s Darcy Flanagan took offence at Ice’s Tyrone Bronte crashing the net and potentially injuring his goaltender Dolan who had only just returned to playing again after injury, and both received 2min minors. At the 5:45, Bronte would indeed crash full boar into Adrenaline goaltender Cale Dolan, who was quite shaken after the collision and Bronte would receive only a 2min minor for goaltender interference. With this the Ice piled on the pressure and scored 2 more goals for the period, both powerplays (Mackenzie Caruana and Kolton Shindle scoring the goals).
The 3rd period was one-way traffic as the Ice now full of confidence after the Bronte-Dolan incident and piled on 4 more goals with the Adrenaline players becoming frustrated (Darcy Flanagan 5misn cross-checking and game misconduct for example), before the determine Kolby Johnson fired a rocket past Ishida with 30secs remaining to score the Adrenaline’s 3rd goal. Johnson said something to his Ice opponent and the referees decided a 10min misconduct penalty was in order. Shots on goal for the period: Ice 15, Adrenaline 9.
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