Despite coming from a football family, Noel Derrick took up ice hockey during World War II and began to play competitively after the conflict. After one season with the Victoria Ice Hockey Association’s Western Suburbs, he spent the remainder of his 30-year career with the league’s Blackhawks. He played for the Victoria team that won a total of 10 Goodall Cups (1951-1955, 1961-1962, and 1965-1967), given annually to the national Australian ice hockey champions. Internationally, he represented Australia at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics, where the nation finished ninth and last in the tournament; Derrick played forward in all six matches, scoring two goals. During his playing days, from the mid-1950s on, he also served stints as the Blackhawks’ coach. He was a torchbearer for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Australia