Following the regular season the Avalanche and the Bears competed in the single game final held on Saturday 1 September 2001 at the Thebarton Snowdome in Adelaide at 4:14pm.[2]
Adelaide entered the grand final match as favourites on the back of an undefeated regular season, where the South Australians posted a 17 wins, 1 tie and 0 losses record. The Bears were however confident themselves with the returning leadership team of Tyler Lovering and Vladimir Rubes for the grand final. In the first period the Avalanche opened the scoring through Trevor Walsh. Walsh doubled the home team's score before Paul and Charlie Lawson cemented Adelaide's lead. The Bears pulled a goal back on the power play to end the first period 1–4 down. In the second period, the Avalanche continued to score at will and found themselves 7–1 up before the Bears began their fightback off the back of Adelaide getting into penalty trouble. The Bears punished the Avalanche on the power play with three unanswered power play goals. Sydney then scored a fifth goal before the end of the period and Adelaide's lead was cut to two goals. At the second break the Avalanche led the game 7–5. Adelaide's top goal scorer, Trevor Walsh, succumbed to a shoulder injury early in the third period and missed the remainder of the grand final. Momentum shifted from the home team to the visiting Bears in the third period and while they continued to score goals the Avalanche kept trading goals with them. With two minutes remaining in the game, Ben Thilthorpe sealed the Adelaide victory with the final goal. The Avalanche won the game 10–7, becoming the 2001 AIHL champions and securing back-to-back AIHL championships.[3][1]
| Game reference |
|---|
| Eric Lien | Goalies | | |
Ben Thilthorpe (2)
Trevor Walsh (2)
Paul Lawson
Charlie Lawson
Chris Brlecic
Glen Foll
Thomas Mikkelsen
John Oddy | Goals | |
|
| 30 min | Penalties | 30 min |
| 54 | Shots | 43 |
