Some of the photos taken at the Australian Ice Hockey League game between Perth Thunder (in finals contention in 4th place on the ladder) and Adelaide Adrenaline (a very slim chance of making it into the finals if a lot of ducks are lined up the same way) played on 16/08/2025 at the Ice Arena, Adelaide, South Australia. First things first, Adrenaline needed to knock of the Thunder in both games which would be a tall ask given the Thunder had one of the AIHL’s leading goalscorers in Yu Hikosaka and 3rd best goaltender Aleksi Toivonen. The Adrenaline would be without the services of captain Joey MacDougall with Josh Adkins wearing the “C” for this game. Captain for the Thunder would be Jamie Woodman (former NHSL and PHL player for South Australian teams during Covid). These two teams are known to play “respectful” game play (IMHO).
First period the Adrenaline were matching the Thunder. Thunder’s David Kudla would head to the penalty box at 13:40 for boarding giving the Adrenaline an early powerplay. Latvian import Romans Nekludovs would seize the opportunity to post the first goal of the game at 12:52 (assists Nathaniel Benson and Josh Adkins). However, Hikosaka would strike back almost immediately at 12:03 mark with the assist coming from Robert Lachowicz. At 5:24, Thunder’s Lynden Lodge received a tripping penalty and Adrenaline’s Zach Boyle made good use of the powerplay to score their 2nd goal at 3:40 (assists Adkins and Nekludovs). Josh Adkins would stun the Thunder with another goal less than a minute later as the home crowd went into fever pitch! The Thunder didn’t quite seemed to be as composed as last time they played at the Ice Arena plus the Adrenaline’s defence had been on point. Shots on goal for the period: Adrenaline 18, Thunder 11.
The 2nd period saw the teams play end to end hockey with no breakthrough as each team’s defence and goaltenders were up to the task. A penalty to Thunder’s Jamie Woodman for interference at 6:23 and Ville Tenosalmi for high-sticking were the only penalties. Shots on goal for the period: Thunder 12, Adrenaline 7.
The intensity definitely ramped up a notch…or two…. in this last period as the Thunder hadn’t been expecting the domination by the Adrenaline and now the Thunder beast awoke! The Adrenaline wanted to give the raucous home town crowd something to cheer about for the last 2 home games of a disappointing season. The Thunder went on the powerplay early with Daniel Chen receiving a tripping penalty. Josh Adkins would score his 2nd goal of the game at 7:20 (assist Benson) to give the Adrenaline a commanding 4-1 lead. The Adrenaline have a reputation in the AIHL for going hard early to get some early goals on the board but this can lead to the stronger teams in the AIHL striking back and stealing wins late in the game but this looked like the Adrenaline had all the answers, and importantly, momentum in all 3 periods! Thunder’s big man Zane Jones brought the Thunder back to a gettable 2-goal deficit (assists Yannic Lodge, Lynden Lodge). The Adrenaline started making some errors and penalties to Romans Nekludovs (hooking) and Julian Friederich (interference) gave the Thunder two chances to come from behind, but the loud home crowd willed on the Adrenaline and the penalty kill units did the job. Eventually the Thunder would pull goaltender Toivenen and Adrenalines Josh Adkins chased the puck hard that had just missed the empty net to grab the puck from behind and scored a wraparound goal with one second left in the game for his hat trick. The Adrenaline had managed to tame Hikosaka, the Thunder goal sneak. Shots on goal had seen the Thunder dominate the last period 17 to 7.
