Global Series between Kings, Coyotes has former NHL players excited 

Scott Timmins and Ty Wishart are superstars in the Australian Ice Hockey League. The imports from Canada once played in the NHL, and they helped the Melbourne Mustangs hoist the Goodall Cup as AIHL champions Aug. 27.

Timmins, a forward who turned 34 on Sept. 11, led the AIHL with 82 points (33 goals, 49 assists) in 26 games. Wishart ranked fourth in the league with 60 points (16 goals, 44 assists) in 23 games, and the 35-year-old was named the league’s best defenseman for the second straight season.

Well, wait until the Aussies see the Arizona Coyotes and Los Angeles Kings in the NHL’s first event in the Southern Hemisphere.

“The Aussies look at me and Ty, and they’re blown away,” Timmins said. “I tell them, ‘No. If you see these guys up close, it’s another world. You’ll be mind-blown.’ I think it’s going to be really cool for them to see these guys firsthand.”

The Coyotes and Kings will arrive in Melbourne, Australia, on Monday. Each team will practice at least twice at O’Brien Icehouse, the Mustangs’ home rink, from Monday to Thursday. Then the teams will hold an open practice at Rod Laver Arena on Friday and play two preseason games there Saturday and Sunday in the 2023 NHL Global Series -- Melbourne.

Each game will start at 12 a.m. ET and be aired on NHL Network in the United States and Sportsnet in Canada.

“I guess down here we’re big fish in a little pond,” Wishart said with a laugh. “They’re going to be in for quite the treat when they see some real NHL guys go at it.”

Timmins and Wishart came to Melbourne to have some fun at the end of their hockey careers, but they had no idea how much fun they’d have. Each is staying in Australia for the foreseeable future.

As North Americans who have played in the NHL and other leagues around the world, they have a unique perspective on hockey in Australia and the impact the NHL’s visit could have.

“I’m pumped to see the ripple effect from this, where it can go, where it can grow,” Timmins said. “This is going to be huge and generate more and more interest. It’ll make the league here so much better. That’s for sure.”

Wishart agreed.

“I think it’s going to be massive for the sport down here, because even if you ask some of the Canadian expats, they’re like, ‘Oh, my goodness. We have hockey down here? It’s amazing,’” he said. “I’ve met quite a few expats that are now big Mustangs fans because they actually know it exists, so I think this is going to bring so much more awareness to the sport down here, and I think that’s super important.”

* * * * *

Wishart, from Belleville, Ontario, was selected in the first round (No. 16) of the 2006 NHL Draft by the San Jose Sharks. He played five games for the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2008-09, 20 for the New York Islanders in 2010-11 and one for the Islanders in 2011-12, producing six points (one goal, five assists). After seven seasons in the AHL, he spent nine globetrotting -- ECHL, Germany, Sweden, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Poland.

Timmins, from Hamilton, Ontario, was selected in the sixth round of the 2009 NHL Draft by the Florida Panthers. He played 19 games for the Panthers in 2010-11 and five for them in 2012-13, scoring one goal. After six seasons in the American Hockey League, he spent six in Germany and Austria.

Wishart and Timmins were playing together for Crimmitschau in the second league in Germany in 2021-22 when Chris Lawrence, Wishart’s former AHL teammate, landed the coaching job in Melbourne. Lawrence asked Wishart if he wanted to play there. Summer in the Northern Hemisphere is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, so one hockey season would blend into the next.

“I was getting to the end of my career, and we had no plans for the summer,” Wishart said. “My family and I just decided to make the trip Down Under.”

Wishart reached out to Timmins to see if he wanted to come too. Timmins had been planning to go home, retire from hockey and become a firefighter.

“I’ve always been kind of just like a go-with-the-flow, go-with-the-wind kind of guy, so I was just like, ‘Yeah. Let’s do it. Let’s go. Four more months of my life, and then I’ll get into firefighting after that.’ It’s just kind of exploded into this.”

After playing for the Mustangs in 2022, neither left Melbourne to play elsewhere in 2022-23. Instead, both stayed in Melbourne, began building lives there and played there again in 2023.

Timmins met his girlfriend, Linda Thai. Wishart and his wife, Dominique, who moved to Melbourne with two children, had another baby. They love the city, a modern, multicultural metropolis of more than 5 million people.

“It’s not like what you think,” Timmins said. “There’s no kangaroos just hopping around the streets or anything. The stereotypes are so far off. It’s been an awesome place to live, just a cool place to call home now.”

Life is good.

“I think I’m going to stick here and be a Mustang,” Wishart said.

* * * * *

The AIHL is semi-professional. Teams practice twice a week in the evenings and play games on the weekends. They fly to many away games because of the vastness of the country, but they don’t pay players.

The league needs imports, players from overseas with minor pro experience. Teams will pay for travel to Australia and some other expenses. The Mustangs put imports in a hotel, give them a car to share and help them find jobs. Timmins works at O’Brien Icehouse coaching and teaching hockey. Wishart is the Mustangs director of hockey operations, and he coaches junior hockey and works in dental sales.

Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, the AIHL had six teams playing 20-game schedules from April to September; each could have two imports. In 2023, the league had 10 teams playing 26-game schedules from April to August; each could have four imports. Of the top 25 scorers, 16 were imports, including the top five and 11 of the top 13.

The style of play is rough, with a rugby or Australian rules football mindset. There is speed and skill, but little to no structure. The players from Australia haven’t had the coaching the imports have. But that’s why the imports are so important.

“They’ve never had to think the game, like, ‘If I don’t have the puck, what am I doing?’” Timmins said. “They kind of watch the guy with the puck rather than helping each other out to get open. It took a lot of teaching and a lot of habit-breaking.

“But they’re so receptive to it, because they want to learn. They want to get better. They actually do care about hockey. It’s been pretty cool just to see where we’ve taken it in such a short period of time.”

Wishart loves the locker room.

“The guys are just amazing down here,” Wishart said. “It’s a smaller sport in scale compared to their AFL or their rugby down here, but man, is it ever a passionate group.”

O’Brien Icehouse, perhaps equivalent to an NHL practice rink, is the best rink in the AIHL. For the championship game, called the Goodall Cup Grand Final, about 1,000 fans packed the stands on one side of the ice and stood in the corners and behind the nets.

When the Mustangs won the Goodall Cup, it was as if they won the Stanley Cup. The tossed their helmets, gloves and sticks, and they mobbed each other as the horn blew. The fans went berserk and blew air horns.

“The owners and the GMs of the teams down here, they really do want to expand and grow the game,” Wishart said. “They do want to take it pro eventually, and I think in order to do that, obviously there’s going to have to be some upgrades to arenas and stuff like that around the league. We’re very fortunate in Melbourne to have the largest rink in the league. It has glass, which is really nice.”

Wait. How many AIHL rinks don’t have glass?

“I think the better question is how many rinks do have glass,” Wishart said with a smile. “I think there’s maybe four that have glass all the way around.”

Some AIHL rinks have mesh tied tightly above the boards.

“In Sydney, you can take a slap shot all the way down, and it just bounces back off the mesh,” Timmins said. “It just spits the puck back in the game.”

Wishart once took a hit behind the net in Sydney. He went to lean against the glass to absorb the blow only to find there was no glass there.

“I almost went over the boards,” he said.

* * * * *

Timmins and Wishart see potential and challenges.

One day about a month ago, Timmins spotted a Yanni Gourde Tampa Bay Lightning jersey in Melbourne.

“I’ll see an NHL thing every third day,” Timmins said. “I saw a random New York Rangers jersey, just a guy in the middle of downtown. I wonder if he knew anything about it. You’ll see just random NHL stuff. People here just love sports in general. It’s pretty cool just to see the effect North America has outside of North America.”

There is a hockey academy at O’Brien Icehouse. Timmins said an adult intro hockey class is packed with 40-year-olds and 50-year-olds.

“I see a ton of interest in people that want to learn hockey and want to learn how to skate,” Timmins said.

But it takes patience.

“It’s been a learning curve for me, because I’ve had to teach myself how to teach hockey,” Timmins said. “I’m more advanced, obviously, so I just don’t know how to talk [to a beginner]. I’m like, ‘Holy smokes, you’ve got to scrape it down to the bare bones, because they don’t even know how to hold a hockey stick or what to do.’

“The first month was a little frustrating. It was eye-opening. But now I’ve kind of loosened up. You just have to accept where you are, obviously. It’s been pretty cool. You definitely see a slow progression. It’s not like back home or Toronto where these kids are on the ice every single day.”

Nathan Walker became the first Australian to play in the NHL when he debuted for the Washington Capitals on Oct. 7, 2017. Born in Cardiff, Wales, he grew up in Sydney and began playing hockey there. The forward has 27 points (13 goals, 14 assists) in 111 games for the Capitals, Edmonton Oilers and St. Louis Blues.

But he left Australia for the Czech Republic at 13 to find better training and competition, and he played for Youngstown of the United States Hockey League before the Capitals selected him in the third round (No. 89) of the 2014 NHL Draft.

Australia has 6,150 players and 20 indoor rinks, according to the IIHF.

It needs more.

And so, the NHL is building an ice rink atop the tennis court at Rod Laver Arena, home of the Australian Open. More fans will see hockey live than ever before in Australia, and they will see it at the highest level.

“Where can we take this?” Timmins said. “Where’s the future of Aussie hockey?”