The Australian Junior Ice Hockey League was first announced on 18 September 2012 by
Ice Hockey Australia. The inaugural season consisted of four teams –
Melbourne Blackhawks,
Melbourne Red Wings,
Sydney Lightning and the
Sydney Maple Leafs, with teams being operated by their respective state governing body. The first season started on 20 October 2012 at the
Medibank Icehouse in
Melbourne and ran until March 2013 with the finals to be held on 9 and 10 March 2013. The Maple Leafs had defeated the Sydney Lightning the week before in the Sydney semi-final, while the Red Wings won the Melbourne semi-final against the Blackhawks 7–3 to progress into the final. On 22 August 2013 it was announced that
Ice Hockey Victoria were renaming the two Melbourne teams for the 2013–14 season. The Melbourne Blackhawks were renamed as the Melbourne Whalers and the Melbourne Red Wings became the Melbourne Glaciers. The following month the Sydney Maple Leafs were renamed the Sydney Wolf Pack and the Sydney Lightning changed their name to the Sydney Sabres. The changes were made in response to the
National Hockey Leagues concern about the AJIHL using their team names and logos, as well as an opportunity to create new history for the teams. The Sydney-based teams play their homes games at the
Penrith Ice Palace in
Penrith, New South Wales, the Melbourne-based teams play out of the
O'Brien Group Arena in
Docklands, Victoria. and the Perth-based teams play out of the
Xtreme Ice Arena in Mirrabooka, Western Australia.
Second Expansion At the beginning of the
2015-16 AJIHL season, a proposal for the next expansion in the AJIHL was made by
Ice Hockey Australia to include teams from the Australian states of
Queensland and
South Australia and the
Australian Capital Territory. A Wild Card entry was created in the AJIHL playoff structure, but no further public information would be made available for months despite plans to form junior teams in each of these states being underway. On the 21 January 2016 a
Tier 2 extension of the AJIHL was announced which would consist of a round robin style tournament and playoff to pick a wild card entry into the AJIHL finals. Currently 3 teams are in the AJIHL Tier 2 league, representing the Australian cities
Adelaide,
Brisbane and
Canberra. By October 2016 no information about the
2016-17 AJIHL season had been released and it was not until the very end of the month that information began to surface over social media involving a weekend schedule involving only the Sydney-based teams and the new expansion teams from Canberra and Brisbane. It was later revealed that the league would adopt a new state based weekend mini tournament style format with 2 conferences in order to minimise the added expenditure involved in having 3 additional cities joining the League. In the first week of December
Canberra Junior Brave withdrew from the scheduled weekend tournament, leaving the remaining 3 teams to only play 4 games instead of the scheduled 6 and the status of the
Canberra Junior Brave unknown for the remainder of the season. On 17 December 2016,
Brisbane Blitz goaltender Imogen Perry became the first female to play in the Australian Junior Ice Hockey League, facing 38 shots on goal against the
Sydney Sabres and winning 7 - 1. On 6 January 2017, the next schedule was released involving the remaining teams in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide. Due to a shrinking junior talent pool, the
Melbourne Whalers suspended operations for the
2016-17 AJIHL season and only the
Melbourne Glaciers would compete. No ice time was reserved to schedule AJIHL games in Melbourne. The
Perth Pelicans also suspended operation for the
2016-17 AJIHL season, leaving only the
Perth Sharks to compete. ==Teams==