The Newcastle Northstars travelled to Melbourne on Thursday for the 2022 Australian Hockey League Finals. Game one on Friday night saw the Northstars suffer a 1-6 defeat against the CBR Brave sending them on to the Saturday afternoon preliminary final.

On Saturday the Northstars faced the Sydney Bears, with the Northstars completing a come-from-behind victory winning 4-3 in overtime. The game winning goal was scored by home-grown alternate captain Patrick Nadin. Head coach John Kennedy Jnr was ecstatic for Pat, saying “Pat Nadin is one of our young guys that just genuinely loves the game for the purity of what hockey is. He works hard and he proves himself time and time again. The way he played on Saturday following his suspension was phenomenal, it just made sense that someone with such a great character and being such an established young gentleman in the locker room would be able to turn around and get that goal.”

The Newcastle side then prepared themselves to face the CBR Brave in the Grand Final on Sunday afternoon, with both teams playing finals worthy hockey. At the end of regulation time, it was CBR Brave who would walk away with the 2-3 victory, claiming the 2022 Australian Ice Hockey Championship.

Kennedy reflected, “It was a huge weekend of hockey, in our true fashion in the locker room that we have we wanted to play as much hockey together as we could, and we did that. It’s not the end result that we wanted, however we can live with the effort that we gave over this whole weekend and especially today.”

“The way we played is the way we wanted to play hockey. It was a fast and physical game and regardless of the score we gave it our all.“

Kennedy also shared his experience of the entire AIHL Finals weekend.

“In regard to the new format for the AIHL I will be the first to say that I am a fan of it. It’s the right way to do it. Even though we were the ones that had the longer road to the final, at the end of the day to win the championship we had that second chance.”

“The only change I’d suggest in that format would be to play 1^st vs 2^nd as the 5pm game on the first day and on the Sunday play the Grand Final at 5pm to give the players as much rest as possible.”

“The whole team behind this weekend have done a great job bringing it all together. Its been a fun weekend for the fans and players and it has been very enjoyable. I really appreciated the welcome to country before each game and a great step in the right direction for us.”

“I am very proud of the boys and the conditioning we have gone through with all our training and practice this year. I want to give full credit to Kevin Noble and congratulations to him for winning coach of the year, and pushing the guys at training so that we were ready to do that.”

“It helps when we have an outstanding goalie like Charlie Smart that can just hold down the fort for the team, and we wouldn’t have been here in this situation if it wasn’t for him this weekend. It’s been so good having him back in the net and doing what he does best.”

“We weren’t able to have Charlie for the whole season due to uni, but you can just see the professionalism in him. He’s such a calm player and a calming presence to the team, you just always feel like, you know, we’re in this game. Yesterday there were two goals that I am sure he would like to have back, and at the end of the day we battled for him and he shut the door so we could come back into the game. He just does his thing, supports the team and he is a top notch goalie, and I would say one of the best in the country.”

“A weekend like this is a collaboration of so many things, and once again a team effort from everyone where they all pulled their weight, everyone was participating and I would go to battle with these guys any day of the week.”

Thank you to all our fans, friends, family, sponsors and rinks for supporting the 2022 season and we look forward to having you all join us once again in 2023.