Hockey in June?

July is usually a time for relaxing, probably on a beach somewhere, but in New Zealand and Australia they are drawing close to play off time.

At the beginning of June five teams: Botany Swarm, Dunedin Thunder, Canterbury Red Devils, Southern Stampede and West Auckland Admirals set out on a round robin tournament. After the group stages the top two play each other in two games at the end of the season.

The league began over ten years ago with just four clubs, Dunedin had not yet joined.

The Dunedin Thunder joined the competition in 2008 which saw the Southern Stampede move all its home games to Queenstown.

This season Southern Stampede, of the South Island, are going for their second successive championship which will be their fourth in all. They will share this honour with Canterbury Red Devils and Botany Swarm.

The leading scorer in this league is Jade Portwood currently in his second season with Stampede after playing at Edinburgh Capitals in the EIHL.

This year Southern Stampede are already through to the finals, but it will be a close run thing to determine their opponents as, with just seven games remaining, only three points separate Canterbury, Botany and West Auckland.

To give you a flavour of the type of ice hockey played here is a video of the best moments from last season.

Tweets by @eurohockey