2023 Syd Tange Under 18 National Ice Hockey Championship – Finals and awards

Between 6th and 9th July 2023 and best Under 18 players in Australia (from Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales) descended into the Ice Arena to join South Australia for the 2023 Syd Tange Under 18 National Championship. Unfortunately Australian Capital Territory withdrew late. Each of the 5 teams played 4 round robin games before 2 semi finals to decide who would play in the Gold medal game.

Day 3 finished off the round robin games (not covered) before the two semi finals in the afternoon. With only the one win (against Victoria) the host state South Australia would miss out on playing finals. Finishing top, Western Australia (1st) would take on Queensland (4th), and in the other semi final New South Wales (2nd) would take on traditional rivals Victoria (3rd). not hold on against fast finishing New South Wales who came over the top to win 6-5 (selected photos in this post). Western Australia beat Queensland 4-1 to through to the Gold Medal game, and New South Wales would just edge out Victoria 4-3.

In the Consolation Final (bronze) Queensland dominated and beat Victoria convincingly 4-1. Then the last game of the tournament, the Gold Medal game between Western Australia who had been strong the whole tournament and New South Wales, a team that had won a swag of gold in the Tange U18, De Fris U15 and Ginsberg U13 series before. Western Australia would out muscle New South Wales with an emphatic 7-2 win. Also winning the recent De Fris under 15 tournament (later in July) as well, Western Australia is now threatening to be a team to beat for a few years.

The last set is the from the Closing Ceremony and awards. Awards were handed out to the best forwards, best defence, best goaltender etc, and then Most Valuable Players from each team as well as the tournament (No.23 Brayden Maybee from Western Australia). Then (not shown here on the website) bronze medals were given out the Queensland players and their officials, silver medals to New South Wales players and their officials and gold medals to the Western Australian players and officials. Then to finish up the Syd Tange Cup was handed over to the captain of Western Australia, Finlay Gordon, who hadn’t stopped smiling the whole competition!

A big thanks goes out Christian Knott for approaching me to be the event photographer, and all those players, team officials and officials for the various games for their interaction and banter during the tournament.

Only a very very small component of the photos taken at the event are represented on the website (that’s because there are about 400 each of the 12 games covered). These photos displayed here are from the two semi finals (Saturday 8/07/2023) and the bronze medal game, gold medal game and the closing ceremony and awards Sunday (9/07/2023).

Semi Final 1st v 4th WA v Qld