Adelaide Adrenaline implosion awaits

Adelaide 29 June 2026. – What a disastrous AIHL season it has been for one of the AIHL’s founding teams, the Adelaide Adrenaline. In fact, this spectacular fall from grace can literally be traced back to the moment management changed; General Manager Glen Foll – who improved the team’s wins from only four in 2023 to 10 in 2025 – was forced to the sidelines in the 2025-26 off-season, to be replaced – not succeeded – by his understudy Jamie Taylor.

“It has somehow managed to get worse with every passing week,” says one longtime insider whom we’ll call Roman. “Too many players, team officials and even supporters are afraid to speak up publicly. Unfortunately, several of our imports seem to spend more time fighting and sitting in the penalty box than making a positive impact on the ice, failing to provide the contribution Adelaide desperately needs.”

After the June 26-27 double-header pummelling by Canberra Brave in the nation’s capital – 10-1 and 4-1 (in which coach Rory Rawlyk was given a post-game match penalty for abusing officials, resulting in an automatic game suspension) – the City of the Churches’ ice hockey crowd has all but given up on its team.

“The Adrenaline club is the worst it has ever been,” says longtime Adelaide supporter and former Australian national team manager Ross Noga. “I expect more suspensions every week.’

Another ex-longtime fan, George Blake (aka on Instagram as <yuritheblack>), recently posted: “Continue being a joke, Adelaide. Glad I am no longer a fan. Get your f**king act together and fix your organisation.”

Herein lies the challenge: they’re one of the three original teams, along with Sydney Bears and Canberra Knights when the AIHL formed in 2000, and have been a continuous member since (bar one season in the ill-fated Pacific Hockey League in 2022); they’re home to the AIHL’s greatest goal-scorer and former national team captain Greg Oddy; celebrated former national team coach John Botterill led them from 1999-2009 including three championship rings with local players such as Josh Harding and Wahebe Darge; and as Adelaide is where the IIHF’s longest serving (1988-2006) national team captain Glen Foll played, coached and later managed the AIHL franchise, this spiral is embarrassing and appalling on and off the ice. The behaviour has become an entrenched cultural problem with little if any acknowledgement of the sorry situation by team management, the franchise owner, or the league itself.

“One import made personal threats towards two volunteers, resulting in one volunteer walking away from the club,” Roman says. “This was reportedly brought to the attention of management, while the same player’s actions came close to costing the club one of its major sponsors. But nothing was reported, nothing has changed.”

Another longtime sponsor told me the Adrenaline was ready to “implode”.

“It’s sad to see. I may have to ask them to dissociate my sign as a sponsor. I am very disappointed with Adrenaline after all these years of support. I am not supporting Adrenaline for the rest of the season,” he said.

Of particular concern are the head coach, Canadian Rory Rawlyk, and two Canadian imports, both with past seasons of up to 200 penalty minutes (PIMs) whose inclination to spend more time in the penalty box than on the ice continues to be their calling card in the AIHL. Rawlyk departed Bangkok to take up the Adrenaline assignment just before the launch of a police investigation into the Ice Hockey Association of Thailand, focusing on allegations of fraud and misappropriation of funds claimed from the Sports Authority of Thailand to pay ice time, a coach’s salary and player per diems. There is no suggestion he is a person of interest.

Rawlyk’s near-four years there involved coaching its national junior teams, a role he filled with no record of prior bench experience. His 20-year minor pro career as a player is dotted with extensive PIMs, including one season in Romania with more than 200 PIMs.

As with all new coaches, Rawlyk deserved the opportunity to settle in and make his mark with the players, sponsors and fans. But on all accounts, he has been a disappointment to Adelaide right from the first practise.

“There are many reports of players being verbally abused while the team has looked disorganised, morale continues to decline, and confusion became the norm rather than the exception,” said Roman. “The impact on the players’ mental health and wellbeing has been impossible to ignore; it has been evident not only in the results on the ice, but even more away from the rink including up to half a dozen players simply walking out on the team.

“Being shouted at and abused for up to an hour after a loss is not motivation; it is poor leadership.”

That’s a reference to a recent home game after which Rawlyk screamed at the players in the team’s locker room, telling them their on-ice failures would be the end of his coaching ‘career’ as he’d “never get hired anywhere else again”.

As veteran Australian national team player and former AIHL standout Andrew Petrie said in a recent Facebook post: “The quality of import for the AIHL is not as simple as ‘what pro league do they play in overseas?’. It is far, far more complex than that. Bringing ‘fighters’ over here is the opposite of what the league should be looking for in their imports.

“I was disgusted by the Adelaide import’s brutal attack on a Bears player (24 May at Macquarie) who wanted absolutely nothing to do with the altercation. I’m all for a good old tilt on the ice, but only between amicable combatants. That attack was pure assault, and anyone condoning or encouraging that behaviour should be sanctioned heavily.

“When I played, Adelaide was always a tough team. They had some genuinely tough guys who would stand up for teammates and answer the bell when challenged.

“Culture is the lowest form of behaviour that leadership promotes or allows, and the Adelaide culture has taken a scary turn this year. The leadership in Adelaide has some serious questions to answer,” Petrie’s Facebook post concluded.

Two imports most problematic this season for the team – and the league – bring a combination of nasty if not goon behaviour to the ice. Tucker Scantlebury incurred three suspensions in the five games he dressed to play before slamming his fist into the Adrenaline’s locker room door/wall, breaking his hand, and catching the next flight home to Manitoba. The 27-year-old forward racked up seven seasons out of eleven in his career with between 100-200 PIMs. Insiders say fellow Jamaican/Canadian import Kolby Johnson, dumped by the Perth Thunder after only four games in 2026, is lucky he hasn’t been charged by police for threats to the team’s support personnel. He is alleged to have threatened a female team volunteer he’d “knock (her) teeth out” when she came to the defence of a fellow Adrenaline off-ice official.

In a separate incident in the recent Canberra double header, Johnson’s audible allegation the referee was “a racist” when the feisty forward was assessed a misconduct penalty midway through the second period for abuse of an official, is a trope  with which Ice Hockey Australia referee-in-chief Chris Park – who was on-ice as one of the two referees in an AIHL game – is familiar. The same player in a 21 June Ice vs Adrenaline match-up  allegedly used a racial epithet in front of the Melbourne bench while celebrating a goal.

The question now is where do the owners, Pelligra Sports and Entertainment (owned by Pelligra Group), whose Adrenaline sponsorship is worth a reported $200,000 per season, stand in all of this?  Accountability has been missing all year.

In the meantime, with only two wins in 18 games so far in 2026, the management and owner’s combined focus of attention should be squarely on its franchise’s culture and how to re-set for the 2027 season.

It’s a project that cannot be delayed one more minute.

Photo credit: Orion2012, Creative Commons (Mustangs vs Adrenaline, 2014)