Selected photos from the 2nd of the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) games of the weekend between the Adelaide Adrenaline and Brisbane Lightning played on 9/08/2026 at the Ice Arena, Adelaide, South Australia. Cale Dolan was back for the Adrenaline in goal. Dillon Dewar would be between the pipes for the Lightning. Once again, the Adrenaline had to stop 2nd highest point scorer in the AIHL league Tanner Hopps and get plenty of shots on goal. The game had been very much an even affair the night before so would be interesting to see if the Adrenaline could go one better and take the win.
The game was delayed for very special celebration, the retirement of AIHL’s legend Greg Oddy’s number 10 jersey. Greg Oddy had been there from the Adelaide Avalanche’s inception as one of the AIHL’s inaugural 3 teams (captain for the last 2 seasons). He was the Adelaide club’s captain for a record 11 seasons (2005-2016), and won 4 Goodall Cups (1997, ’00, ’01, ’09). In 2018, Oddy also held the titles for Most AIHL Games Played (383), Most AIHL Assists (347), and Most AIHL Goals (268). He had represented Australia for many many years, including as captain for 4 years. He continued on playing for 2 more years playing for the Adelaide Blackhawks in the Adelaide local league. The celebration included Greg’s wife Jodie and kids, and the family of fellow jersey retiree Josh Harding (No. 22). After the Jersey number was unveiled in the rafters, Greg would do the ceremonial puck drop.
Once the game started the Adrenaline set the tone early, getting out of the blocks very fast with a goal to Joey MacDougall (assist Yongen Song) only 90secs into the game. The home crowd would go bunta as the Adrenaline scored again 4mins into the game, with Kolby Johnson scoring off a Coy Prevost assist. That would be all the scoring for the period. Plenty of penalties had been handed out with 4 to the Adrenaline and Lightning’s Sacha Rapchuk receiving two. Shots on goal for the period: Adrenaline 18, Lightning 10.
The Adrenaline needed to keep the momentum going as the Lightning were always ready to pounce on loose pucks in front of net, but Kolby Johnson would score his 2nd goal of the game at the 10min mark to give the Adrenaline a handy 3-goal lead (assist Nathaniel Benson). Something suddenly sparked for the Lightning, because at the 6:27 mark they were on the board as Grant Hebert would score (assists Zachary Shankar, Tanner Hopps). A minute and a half later the Lightning had trimmed the Adrenaline lead to one goal when Arum Rapchuk found a way was the Adrenaline netminder (assists Sacha Rapchuk, Bryce Hodges). A late penalty to Adrenaline’s Julian Friederich for tripping gave the Lightning the powerplay, and Tanner Hopps used the opportunity to square things up at 3-a-piece with a minute to play in the period. Shots on goal for the period: Adrenaline 17, Lightning. The Adrenaline needed to find something to break the Lightning’s momentum.
The Adrenaline didn’t have the answers as Zachary Shankar would put the Lightning one-up at the 16:26 mark and then 23secs later big Batu Gendunov would silence the Adrenaline home crowd scoring their 5th goal (assists Eric Walker, Sacha Rapchuk). With 11:41 on the clock Adrenaline’s Joey MacDougall would bring it back to one goal difference again (assist Kolby Johnson), but the joy would be short-lived as Bryce Hodges restored the 2-goal advantage to the Lightning at 10:29 (assists Sacha Rapchuk, Batu Gendunov). The game got feisty and descended into chaos as players started fighting with about 9mins remaining in the game. Adrenaline penalties: Joey MacDougall 5mins for fighting, 2mins for cross-checking and 20mins game misconduct, Austin Pickford 5mins for butt-ending, followed by a 20min penalty for a second butt-ending. Penalties for the Lightning: Zachary Shankar 5mins for fighting and a 20min game misconduct. The Adrenaline would be seeing a penalty kill situation, but this didn’t deter Nathanial Benson who would score shorthanded at the 6:48 mark (assists Kolby Johnson, Coy Prevost) and then score again only 22secs later to tie things up at 6-a-piece (assists Johnson and Prevost). We were looking like another overtime decider coming up as the period wound down, but it was not to be as Sacha Rapchuk scored late to give the Lightning a 7-6 win. The Adrenaline had made a swap in goals early in the period. The Lightning had hammered the Adrenaline goaltenders Cale Dolan and Jeremy Friederich to the tune of 23 shots in the last period to the Adrenaline’s lowly 10 shots
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