The Canberra Brave (formally CBR Brave) is a semi-professional ice hockey team based in Canberra, ACT. The team is a member of the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL). The team was founded in 2014 to replace the defunct Canberra Knights in the AIHL. As of the 2025 season, their home venue is AIS Arena. The Brave have claimed three Goodall Cup championships and four H Newman Reid Trophy premierships.
History The Canberra Brave was founded in March 2014 as the CBR Brave to replace the Canberra Knights in the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL).
On 26 February 2014 Knights owner, John Raut, handed back his AIHL licence and folded the team after 33 years of existence citing financial costs, lack of a local player pool and sustained poor performances for the reason he came to this decision.
Immediately following the collapse of the Knights, a player group led consortium approached the AIHL with a proposal to take over the vacated licence and form a new team in Canberra. The AIHL was open to the idea, stating it was important for the development of the sport in Australia for there to be a Canberra team. The AIHL laid down three stipulations and requirements for the consortium to meet before granting the team entry. Firstly, a signed home venue agreement, secondly, ability to field a competitive team for the upcoming season and lastly, to prove the team would be financially viable. Upon meeting these requirements the league and teams voted to grant the consortium a provisional twelve-month licence to compete in the 2014 AIHL season.
On 6 March 2014, CBR Brave is born under the guidance of new owners Allinsure director Peter Chamberlain and advertising firm Coordinate's owner-director Jamie Wilson after the pair got in contact with Mark Rummukainen, head of the player consortium.
On 15 March 2014, The Brave management in conjunction with co-owner Jamie Wilson's design firm, Coordinate, revealed their team brand and logo, a stylised version of the word "Brave".
2014 inaugural season
On 31 March 2014, CBR Brave announced their first ever import signing with the acquisition of twenty-two-year-old Finnish goaltender Petri Pitkänen from Finnish third division champions KeuPa HT. Petri proved a huge success as the Brave's number one goaltender in the 2014 season alongside fellow successful imports Anton Kokkonen, Stephen Blunden and Mathieu Ouellette who finished 1, 2 and 3 in the Brave player statistics leader board, which equated to 2, 3 and 4 for the entire league.
On 12 April 2014, The Brave took to the ice in their maiden AIHL match at home in front of around 1000 fans against the Newcastle North Stars. The visitors won the match 2-0 but the match was described by the media as a major win for the city of Canberra as the CBR Brave did not exist a few weeks prior and it took a community led miracle of sorts to get the new team up off the ground and onto the ice thanks to a successful community and fan led fundraising campaign that raised over $27,000.
26 April 2014, Round 3, In their second match after a bye in round 2, the Brave registered their inaugural victory in the AIHL regular season with a 6–2 victory over the then reigning champions Sydney Ice Dogs with a break-out third period domination at home in front of a sold-out crowd of 1000 people.
On 10 August 2014, The Brave secured a top four finish in the AIHL regular season by coming third in the overall rankings, granting them a place in the 2014 AIHL Goodall Cup Finals Series held at Medibank Icehouse in Docklands, Victoria. It is the first time a Canberra team has made the finals series since the AIHL was formed in 2000 and the first time a Canberra team had a shot at securing the Goodall Cup since 1998.
On 23 August 2014, The Brave hosted their 2014 season presentation night at the Woden Tradies Club where Finnish goaltender Petri Pitkänen took out the inaugural MVP (Most Valuable Player) award, the top prize for the season. In other awards, Mathieu Ouellette was named best two-way player, Stephen Blunden was named best forward and Matt Harvey took out the best defender award. Aaron Clayworth clinched both players' player and coaches' award, Anton Kokkonen was named fan's choice while captain Mark Rummukainen took home the John Lewis Memorial Award. The final award for the night went to young gun Kai Miettinen who was named best u23 player. Petri Pitkänen and Mathieu Ouellette were also shortlisted for league awards, Mathieu missed out on the top honour but Petri was selected as the AIHL Goaltender of 2014.
30 August 2014, The Brave lost their semi-final match to the Melbourne Ice 6–1 in front of 1,500 fans, ending their inaugural season in the process.
2015 season
On 30 January 2015, Brave announce the appointment of Brad Hunt as the new head coach for the 2015 AIHL season. Brad was originally going to take on the assistant coach role for 2015 after hanging up the skates at the end of the 2014 season but with former head coach Matti Louma leaving the club to take on a development coaching position in Perth, Hunt was promoted to head coach instead.
On 9 February 2015, 2015 AIHL season draw changes, originally released 4 December 2014, affected the CBR Brave with an additional three games to be played in Canberra for the 2015 season after the Sydney Bears and Sydney Ice Dogs opted to play their home games against the Brave in Canberra instead of Sydney. This resulted in 17 home games for the Brave in 2015 as opposed to the standard 14.
On 31 March 2015, CBR Brave in conjunction with Ice Hockey ACT announced the formation of the Junior Brave to compete in the 2015 NSW Midget League. The team is coached by former AIHL player and Australian representative Andrew Brunt. The Junior Brave are the first Canberra-based team to compete in the NSW Midget League since 2011 when Canberra Phoenix left the league. In their inaugural year, the Junior Brave were runners up, beating the Canterbury Eagles 3–2 in the semi-final and losing the final to defending champions, the Liverpool Saints 3–1. Three of the Junior Brave players made their debut with the CBR Brave in the AIHL – goalie Alexandre Tetrault, and forwards Jayden Lewis and Jordon Brunt. Alexandre Tetrault was also selected to represent Australia in the Under 20 World Championships in Serbia in 2016.
On 14 July 2015, CBR Brave Chairman Peter Chamberlain confirmed the mutual separation between the team and head coach Brad Hunt with immediate effect. On ice performances during the 2015 AIHL regular season and future planning were cited as the main reasons for the decision. In the same statement the Board confirmed current first choice import goaltender, Josh Unice, would take over as head coach on an interim basis for the remainder of the 2015 AIHL season including finals. Veteran defenceman, Aaron Clayworth, would join Josh in moving from the player roster to the coaching staff by taking over as assistant coach. A committee was established to oversee the selection process of a permanent head coach for the 2016 AIHL season.
On 16 August 2015, The CBR Brave officially secured fourth place in the AIHL regular season to give the team a birth in the 2015 AIHL Finals and a second shot at the Goodall Cup in as many seasons. This came about as a result of a shootout victory over the top team Newcastle North Stars 6–5 at the Brave Cave, Canberra, ACT, when Jordan Gavin slotted home in sudden death as well as other results going the Brave's way.
The following weekend, 22 August 2015, the CBR Brave played their final match of the 2015 AIHL regular season away to the last placed Sydney Ice Dogs at the Phillip Ice Skating Centre, as the Ice Dogs moved their home match to Canberra. With the Brave guaranteed to finish fourth and the Ice Dogs to finish last the match was a dead rubber. Both Stephen Blunden and Kelly Geoffrey finished the match with six points as Blunden fired in 4 goals and 2 assists with Kelly achieving the opposite. Veteran forward, Ryan Johnson, grabbed the buzzer beating final goal in the third period with seventeen seconds to go to send the Brave into the Finals on the back of a 7–2 victory. The win also officially cemented the Brave's fourth-place finish in the 2015 AIHL season. One place and two points behind their inaugural season's finish, an amazing finish considering before Josh Unice took over the team was second last and after Unice took over the team won six of seven games.
On 23 August 2015, the Brave hosted their annual 'Brave Ball' gala evening at the Woden Tradies Club at which the 2015 season team awards were handed out. Stephen Blunden headed the awards night with three awards (Bravest of the Brave, Best Forward, Highest Point Scorer) with Jimmy Byers following closely behind with two awards (Emerging Brave, Fans Choice). Rounding out the awards Ryan Johnson won the John Lewis Memorial Award for the most dedicated player of the season on and off the ice, Best Defender went to Kyle Mariani, Mark Rummukainen won the Player's Player while Kai Miettinen and Peter Taylor shared the Coaches' Award. At the same event the Brave announced the formation of the CBR Brave Foundation to better connect the team to the local community and charities.
On 29 August 2015, in front of 1,200 passionate fans, the CBR Brave took on the league premiers, Newcastle North Stars, in game one (semi-final one) of the 2015 AIHL Finals. The Brave controlled the first two periods of the match that produced two shorthanded goals to Kelly Geoffrey and Stephen Blunden before Blunden got his second of the match in the second period to put the Brave up 3–0. The North Stars finally got on the score sheet in the second period on the power play as the Brave continued to get into penalty strife. The third period saw a complete change in the match with Newcastle dominating and league MVP Geordie Wudrick coming out and scoring a hat trick to send the premiers through to the grand final and knock the Brave out of the Finals at the same stage as the season before. Aleksi Toivonen and Stephen Blunden were selected as 2nd and 3rd Stars of the game.
2016 season
The Brave were sufficiently impressed with Josh Unice's interim stint to hand him the permanent head coaching role with a three-year contract on 9 March 2016. The experienced Dave Rogina was retained as assistant coach and Stuart Philips was brought in as strength and conditioning coach. Six imports were confirmed in the 2016 Brave roster, which was released on 12 April 2016. The core group of Australian players were retained from 2015. The headline addition to the roster was Canadian forward Geordie Wudrick, who joined from rivals Newcastle Northstars. Wudrick joined the Brave as current AIHL MVP after he broke the league's points and goals records in 2015 with Newcastle. A few days later, on 18 April 2016, the Brave announced a new cooperative partnership with Canberra's Australian Baseball League team, the Canberra Cavalry. Member benefits would extend between fans of the two teams and joint marketing opportunities between the two organisations would be explored. Further expanding the Brave's local partnership program, the team further agreed to a mutually beneficial partnership with the Australian Defence Force hockey team the Navy Tigersharks. Announced pre-game on 23 April 2016, the new partnership looked to promote ice hockey within the Australian Defence community and assist in establishing a development pathway for emerging talent.