Plaudits and Prosecco at Pres Night 2024!

After a hugely successful season, MUHC members enjoyed a sold-out Presentation Night at St Andrew’s Conservatory in Fitzroy, giving our teams a chance to celebrate in style.

With representation from every facet of the club, from Masters right up to Vic League 1, the event honoured individual and collective achievements from another successful year of hockey.

The evening opened with the President’s speech as Alana Butler waxed lyrical about her first Pres Night where she took some shade for getting injured on her first game in the club! In another club, she pointed out, that might have been the end of her time there, but MUHC provided her with other opportunities and avenues to become involved, although she hadn’t expected, at that time, to end up as President!

The Best & Fairest Awards came next, presented by Caz Watson and Rudy Tielen. These awards, which are voted on by each team, celebrate individual brilliance among teammates.

A few interesting notes – as the Vic League 1 and Reserves women had not held their Vote Count before Pres Night, they didn’t know their winners in advance of the event. On a somewhat similar note, despite holding their Vote Count on the SAME DAY as Pres Night, the Women’s Pennant D girls also didn’t know who had won from their team!

The fulllist of winners is as follows:

Men’s Metro – Peter Bolling

Men’s Pennant E – Saxon Perry

Men’s Pennant D – Arun Broadhurst

Men’s Pennant B – Troy Honey

Men’s Vic League Reserves – Michael McIvor

Men’s Vic League 1s –Zane Hutter

Women’s Masters 35+ A – Rebecca Gill

Women’s Metro – Jacquie Phelps

Women’s Pennant E – Hannah Ross

Women’s Pennant D – Penny Williamson

Women’s Pennant B – Abigail McIlveen

Women’s Pennant A – Emily Anderson

Women’s Vic League Reserves – Katie Lang

Women’s Vic League 1s – Elise Facer-Childs & Remi Stallworthy

Congrats to all who skulled their celebratory drinks and managed not to spill a single drop – true MUHC behaviour!

The next awards were to honour players who had enjoyed the most significant improvement over the course of the season. Presented by David ‘Fiddy’ Symington and Em Rosse, the awards went to Callum McWaters from Men’s Pennant B, and Hayley Smith from Women’s Vic League Reserves. Both players excelled in their respective teams and roles this year, pushing themselves to consistently, and repeatedly, step up to the plate.

Fiddy and Em also presented the Highest Goal Scorer Awards which, this year, went to Rob Hale from MPD with 24 goals, and Jo Roberts from WVLR with 28 goals.

This year’s President’s Cup was awarded to two individuals who were involved in huge aspects of the club’s administrative functions, with them overseeing the Men’s and Women’s sections respectively. Not only is each person a playing member (and at high levels), they also took on coaching roles, on top of being the first point of contact for all new players coming to the club.

The President’s Cup winners for 2024 are Caz Watson and Zane Hutter.

The final award of the night was for Team of the Year and, with a healthy helping of success for the club this year, this was a very tough decision.

Madame President went full Oscars mode by announcing nominees: Women’s Pennant D, for their Minor Premiership and Grand Final Runners-Up run, along with using 44 players across the course of the year(!), a serious emphasis on ‘squad’; Women’s Vic League 1s who, after a slightly rocky start to the year, regrouped and finished strong with a second place league finish and, most importantly, a Grand Final win; and lastly, the Women’s Vic League Reserves who went unbeaten all season and boasted a final goal difference of 109 – the best such statistic in the whole of VIC!

And the Oscar award went to… the Vic League Reserves, for what was as close to an unblemished season as you could ever hope to achieve.

The evening’s official events wrapped up with the yearly Toast to Hockey, this year delivered by Pennant A goalkeeper and Irish import, Anna Hayes, who recounted her story of moving from Wexford to Melbourne and finding everything that was important in life right here in Melbourne Uni Hockey Club.

It was an unexpectedly moving speech (she swears she was going for humour!) that touched upon meeting her soon to be now husband, Fiddy, and reportedly had a lot of Shoppers tearing up in their tequilas!

With the official proceedings over and done with, the party got underway in earnest with many shoppers carrying on to the after party at the appropriately named ‘Perseverance’.

An honourable mention has to go out to the life of the party, Trent Madden, who secured a new record for the most broken glasses at a MUHC event, which is impressive as we thought the Mullins brothers would hold that one, from Cocktail Night 2023, for a bit longer!

Congrats to all members on a great year – bring on 2025!

Sign up for Summer Hockey

For anyone already missing their weekly hockey fix, fret not as summer hockey will commence in the coming weeks.

This social, mixed competition is a great way to meet members of the club in a (for most people!) more relaxed environment – and there’s always a post-match pub dinner to continue the chats!

If you are interested in getting involved in the fun, please fill out the EOI linked below. There are also opportunities to manage, goal-keep and umpire, if you fancy trying your hand at something new.

The games, which will consist of two 25-minute halves, will take place at Melbourne Sports Centres – Parkville, with games generally being scheduled at 6.45PM and 7.45PM onThursday evenings, starting on November 7. The competition’s 2025 dates are TBC but likely to commence on January 16.

Fees will be $125 for non-students and $115 for students, with HV registration also required for anyone who was did not play during the 2024 winter season.

MUHC has registered with Lifeblood Teams - the group blood donation program from Australian Red Cross Lifeblood - so let’s enjoy a little competition and make a genuine difference together. Join our team, Melbourne University Hockey Club via the link below.

Every donation you make with the MUHC team or by yourself counts and saves up to three lives.