He was an assistant captain for the HC Vitkovice U20 squad and in 13 games scored 12 goals with 12 assists and was +10 with 42 penalty minutes before joining the Phantoms. [39], In 2018, the Ice Dogs once again had a new head coach. [40] The Ice Dogs lost their GM with Jason Juba stepping down from his role at the team to focus on family and business ventures. Read more», Photo: Madison Bowey’s goal and three assists helped Team Canada win the gold medal at the World Junior Championships (Image courtesy of Dennis Pajot/Getty Images), The Washington Capitals have promoted a pair of prime-time NHL prospects into their lineup this year, with the highly-touted duo of Evgeny Kuznetsov and Andre Burakovsky making the team out of camp. Playing in five games he recorded a goal and an assist before being sent back to the AHL in December. [34] Matt Clark was a former Bombers and national youth team player who passed away in 1995 from leukaemia. Western Sydney's next chance came in 2002 when the AIHL decided to expand the league from three to six teams. [4] Chris Sekura was named inaugural Ice Dogs captain. The team's stay in Baulkham Hills was short lived however, as they again moved in 2009 to Liverpool and the Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink.
Walker spent the 2013-14 season with the Capitals organization prior to being drafted. In 24 games with the HC Vitkovice U20 team, including one playoff contest, he scored 5 goals with 5 assists and was +1 with 16 penalty minutes. [32] While a number of former players re-joined the Ice Dogs including, Tomas Manco, David Dunwoodie, Andrew White and Scott and Todd Stephenson.
[33] New team president, Chris Blagg, resurrected the Matt Clark Shield Match. The Ice Dogs reached the finals weekend in 2003 after finishing fourth in the regular season. Western Sydney defeated the Melbourne Ice in the semi-finals in overtime before coming up against Newcastle for the third time in a Goodall Cup (championship) final. [8] The Ice Dogs moved to Baulkham Hills and played out of the Sydney Ice Arena for one season as they looked for a new home. [1] The Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) started in 2000. Walker was the third-leading goal scorer with 20 goals in 37 regular season games for the HC Vitkovice U20 team and was +40 with 22 assists and 20 penalty minutes. [18] The Ice Dogs were then shocked in April ahead of the new season. 2009-10: Nathan Walker played four games with the Sydney Ice Dogs men’s team in his native Australia and spent his second full season playing junior hockey in the Czech Republic. Eliteprospects.com hockey player profile of Nathan Walker, 1994-02-07 Cardiff, GBR Australia. [58] The Ice Dogs were the only team in the AIHL in 2009 known as Sydney. [28] The ice Dogs did defeat the Sydney Bears in a shootout on 13 June 2015 to claim their only win and points of the season,[29] however, due to multiple breaches in the number of players travelled with, the Ice Dogs were penalised by the AIHL and had three competition points taken away, leaving the Ice Dogs on 0 points at the end of the season. [36][37] Negotiations had occurred between team president, Chris Blagg, and general manager, Jason Juba, and the newly renovated Macquarie Ice Rink in the off season that resulted in a deal that ended the Ice Dogs time in Liverpool and Western Sydney and moved the team to Sydney's Northern Suburbs in Macquarie.
The Ice Dogs were defeated by eventual winner, the Melbourne Mustangs in the semi-finals held at Melbourne Icehouse, Melbourne. [2], The Sydney Ice Dogs was established in 2002 as the Western Sydney Ice Dogs and entered the AIHL for the 2002 season. The Sydney Ice Dogs (formally Western Sydney Ice Dogs) is an Australian semi-professional ice hockey team from Sydney, New South Wales. [24] The Ice Dogs iced a lot of junior players in 2015 under the guidance of former Oman national team head coach, Anders Jespersen,[25] and from the middle of June, Mario Passarelli[26] and Tim Flynn. (Russian Machine Never Breaks) [6], In 2004, the Ice Dogs went one better and claimed the AIHL championship and the Goodall Cup for the first time in the team's history. Read more», Photo: Forward Nathan Walker continues to find a role in the Washington Capitals organization after being selected in the third round of the 2014 NHL Draft. For the first time the Ice Dogs would share a home with Sydney rivals the Bears. 2013-14: Walker was invited to Washington’s training camp and signed an AHL contract with the Capitals affiliate Hershey. The Ice Dogs are two time Goodall Cup champions. Read more», Photo: Chris Brown has been called up to the NHL twice since Washington acquired him from Arizona, scoring two goals and an assist in 11 combined games. [11] The Ice Dogs also moved to their new home in Liverpool at the Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink. The Ice Dogs remained in Liverpool for eight years, playing their last season at the rink in 2016, prior to agreeing to move to Macquarie in 2017. Blacktown in-turn withdrew support for the Flyers and a semi-private owned team, the Blacktown Bullets, were founded and joined the league in place of the Flyers. Walker spent the majority of the 2019-20 season playing for the Blues’ American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the San Antonio Rampage, recording 32 points from 46 games. Following the closure of the Warringah Ice Skating Rink in the '90s, NSWSL powerhouse, Warringah Bombers relocated to Blacktown. Walker began playing hockey at age six and by thirteen he was in a league with players as old as twenty and able to outplay them.
Given his lack of offensive flair and somewhat smaller frame, he remains a longshot to make the Capitals at any point in the season outside of an injury call-up. Read more», Photo: Hershey Bears forward and Washington Capitals prospect Nathan Walker (#79) is the first NHL-drafted player from the country of Australia (courtesy of Minas Panagiotakis/Icon Sportswire), Hockey is predominantly popular in the colder, northern climates of the world. Apr 7, 2019: Assigned [3], The Ice Dog's first AIHL season saw the team finish mid-table in third place, just missing out on the championship final match for the top two teams. They give their youngsters the opportunities they need to grow at the lower levels before promoting one or two to the lineup per year. In ten games for the HC Vitkovice U18 team he scored 4 goals with 10 assists and was +12 with 22 penalty minutes. 2012-13: Walker attended the Washington Capitals development camp prior to returning to the Czech Republic and split the first half of the season between the HC Vitkovice men’s and U20 teams. Complete player biography and stats. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Interim head coach, Tim Flynn took over as general manager in the offseason before a permanent new general manager was announced on 3 March 2016. In 29 USHL games he scored 7 goals with 20 assists and was +5 with 63 penalty minutes before suffering a season-ending neck injury in April. Walker had similar numbers in the U16 league; he scored 69 points in 16 games to again lead the league in scoring, with the second highest total being 5… The Bears finished fourth in the East Division; two points behind Norfolk for the final playoff spot. Online audio streaming: He had one assist and no penalty minutes with the Ice Dogs. On 14 April, Ron Kuprowsky and his two assistants, Colin Downie and Brad Andrlon, all abruptly tendered their resignations with the Ice Dogs. They won their semi-final, defeating the league premiers, Adelaide Avalanche, 4–1. The Ice Dogs have gone through one change in name since inception in 2002. In the team's first appearance in the Goodall Cup final, the Ice Dogs were defeated by the Newcastle North Stars 1–4. [7], October 2007, the Blacktown Ice Arena closed down leaving the Ice Dogs without a rink for the 2008 season. Walker's debut came in a 6–2 loss at Liverpool Catholic Club Ice Rink against Ice Dog's rivals Newcastle North Stars. Walker scored 4 goals with 2 assists and was +7 with 4 penalty minutes as Australia, the host team, won all four of its games to capture a gold medal. [31] The Ice Dogs then appointed former player, Vlad Rubes as new head coach. Walker was selected by Washington in the third round (89th overall) in the 2014 NHL Draft and signed a three-year, entry-level contract with the Capitals in July 2014. He scored 1 goal with 1 assist and 6 penalty minutes in three games for Sydney . The Ice Dogs kept this colour scheme till the end of 2016. [42] The Ice Dogs pushed for a finals birth but they lost to the Mustangs in the final match of the regular season and missed out on qualification by one point. The Ice Dogs defeated the North Stars 6–3 to claim the team's second Goodall Cup. monitoring_string = "bc2ae3134a3dd058ed8105843eaa87e4", Hockey's Future | The #1 Online Prospects Resource, Hope for Washington Capitals’ AHL prospects, despite mediocre record, Capitals farm system deep in the back end, Washington Capitals depth chart still brimming with talent, The Top Five most unconventional developing hockey nations, Defense and goaltending main strengths of Washington Capitals’ minor league system. The Bullets did not join the new league, so for the first time in nineteen years, Western Sydney did not have a representative team in the top level of Australian hockey.
Walker had 1 assist and was minus-2 with 29 penalty minutes in 20 Czech Extraliga games.
[16], The Ice Dogs next success came in the 2013 season.