History
The Ice Dogs (along with the Melbourne Ice and Newcastle North Stars) were part of a three-team expansion to the AIHL in 2002, joining the original teams Adelaide Avalanche (who disbanded in 2008), Canberra Knights and Sydney Bears.
Ice hockey in Western Sydney goes back to 1981, when the Blacktown Flyers were a foundation member of the New South Wales Superleague. While lasting for thirteen seasons, this league struggled to gain stability and folded, to be reborn in 1994 as the ECSL, however it too would be disbanded in 2000 with Western Sydney having no representative in the newly-formed AIHL.
The region returned to the national ice hockey map in 2002 when the Ice Dogs joined the AIHL. John Wilson, owner of the Blacktown Ice arena funded the team and Anthony Wilson (his son) captained, managed and recruited for the team. The teams' first season was a success despite missing the semi-finals, finishing third out of six teams. It was not enough to make the finals, however, with a four-team playoff series would not be introduced until the 2003 season.
The Ice Dogs finished third in 2003 as well, but made the final after defeating the second-placed Adelaide Avalanche to reach the Goodall Cup final in 2003, before losing the championship game 4-1 to Newcastle. They would have their revenge in 2004, as both teams again squared off for the Cup and the Ice Dogs won 3-1. The 18 year old goaltender Gabriel Robledo was instrumental in Ice Dogs Finals win. A healthy rivalry between the Ice Dogs and the North Stars arose from these two championship games. 2 star imports that season was John Heinen and Martin Jesko.
At the start of the 2009 season the team was renamed to "Sydney Ice Dogs", dropping the Western part of the title. This also coincided with the complete redesign and re-launch of their website early in the 2009 season. Updated news and feature articles were a regular offering via the dedicated blog named, "Give a Dog a Blog". In 2010, the website promises of a new section for video highlights of home games tentatively named 'Ice Dogs TV'.
Read more about this topic: Sydney Ice Dogs
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