Goodall Cup

The Goodall Cup is the championship trophy of the Australian Ice Hockey League. The Goodall Cup has been contested as the national senior men's ice hockey trophy in Australia since 1909, making it the fifth oldest known ice hockey trophy still being awarded, after the Stanley Cup (1892; NHL Championship Cup), the Queen's Cup (1903; Ontario University Championship Cup), the Boyle Cup (1904; previously Newfoundland Senior Men's Cup and now Newfoundland High School Championship Cup), and the Allan Cup (1908; Canadian Senior Men's Amateur Championship Cup).

The Goodall Cup was traditionally an inter-state tournament, before it was incorporated into the Australian Ice Hockey League in 2002. New South Wales and Victoria were the original competitors and, between them, held the trophy until 1977 when Queensland won the cup.

The Goodall Cup has been competed for annually since 1909 with the following exceptions: 1914-1920 (World War I), 1940-1946 (World War II), 1955-1960 (closure of the Sydney Glaciarium) and 1993.

Inception
Ice hockey had been played in Australia at club level as early as 1909, when four Melbourne-based teams (Glaciarium, Beavers, Brighton and Melburnians) began play at Victoria's first ice rink, which opened in Melbourne that year. A similar rink had opened in Sydney the previous year, however it wasn't until 1909 that a New South Wales team was formed and sent to Melbourne to play the Victorians. Victoria lost the first of the three games but won the next two to take the series 2-1. In 1910, the Victorian team visited Sydney to take on New South Wales again. Among the Victorian players to make the trip was captain John Goodall, who had donated the trophy for the previous years interstate tournament.

New South Wales and Victoria would not play again until 1921 as World War I forced the closure of the Sydney rink (which reopened in 1920) and the abandonment of the 1914 season. New South Wales won the 1921 series with a far superior lineup which included Canadian Jimmy Kendall, who had previously turned down a cadetship with the Montreal Professional Club.

In 1922, the Victorians, captained by John Goodall, won back the Goodall Cup in what was considered an upset. It was the last time the Victorians won the Cup until 1947, and Goodall's last win of the cup that he had donated back in 1909.

Later Years
Despite losing the first Goodall Cup series, New South Wales would dominate for the next quarter-century, winning every series from 1923 to 1946, although the competition was placed on hiatus for the years of World War II (1939–1945).

The Goodall Cup remained an annual series between state associations until 2002, when the trophy became the prize given to the winners of the newly formed AIHL. The Sydney Bears won the first AIHL Goodall Cup that year. The Cup was withdrawn from the AIHL in 2009 by the cup's custodians, Ice Hockey Australia. It was instead awarded to South Australia in a traditional state vs state tournament held in Adelaide, South Australia in October 2009 as a 100 year celebration of the Goodall Cup. In 2010 the Goodall Cup was offered back to the AIHL, and the cup accepted by a vote of the members and board. The Goodall Cup has been re-instated by the AIHL as its finals tournament trophy and as the prize signifying Australian champions of ice hockey. Adelaide Adrenaline, winners of the 2009 AIHL playoff were engraved into the cup and are also known as the 2009 Goodall Cup champions.