Timmins rekindles 'love for the sport again' playing in Australia

Scott Timmins thought he knew exactly how his hockey life would end.

By 2022, the former Florida Panthers forward was 32 years old and wrapping up his second season for Eispiraten Crimmitschau of DEL-2, a second-tier league in Germany. He had already played in the NHL, spent years grinding through the American Hockey League, and built a respectable career across Europe in Austria, Hungary and Germany. The hockey journey had been long enough for him to recognize where it was heading.

His body still felt good. His love for the game remained intact. But the climb was over.

“The summer before, I had done the firefighter program through the Professional Hockey Players Association,” Timmins told NHL.com International. “I was just kind of setting myself up for the next chapter.”

Then a teammate looked over at him in the locker room and casually asked a question.

Did he want to go to Melbourne?

Ty Wishart, a former New York Islanders defenseman, had just heard from Melbourne Mustangs coach Chris Lawrence, who needed two import players for the upcoming Australian Ice Hockey League season. Timmins barely hesitated.

“Yeah, absolutely,” he remembered thinking. “I always kind of wanted to do something like that.”

The plan was simple enough. Spend four months in Australia, play one last season of hockey, see a different corner of the world, then return home to Canada and begin a new career as a firefighter.

The latter part of the plan never materialized.

“I met a girl first two or three weeks that I got here and then fell in love,” Timmins said.

Four years later, he is still there.

What makes Timmins’ story compelling is not simply that a Canadian hockey player fell in love abroad. Hockey has produced countless versions of that story over the years.

The more interesting part is Australia arrived at the exact moment Timmins had started emotionally detaching from the sport itself.

Professional hockey had become a hard business.

“You kind of feel like a piece of meat,” Timmins said of life in pro hockey. “You can be replaced at any second.”

The NHL dream had been real. Timmins played 24 games with the Florida Panthers between 2011 and 2013, scoring one goal. For a young player from Ontario, it felt surreal.

But NHL jobs disappear quickly. The years afterward became a familiar cycle for many players living outside the spotlight. Contracts. Pressure. Uncertainty. Constant evaluation. In the AHL, teammates often compete against one another for the same opportunity.

“When I was in Florida, I would say that was peak happiness, just being a wide-eyed rookie, five-star hotels, chartered flights. It was beyond my wildest dreams,” Timmins said. “But it was only 24 games. And it went by in the blink of an eye. But I was like, 'This is the best.' Even while I was making the League minimum, I was like, 'This is amazing. This is the dream and you're in the middle of it.' It didn't last long.

“Just that stress, 'Am I going to get called up (from the AHL)?' If somebody else got called up, you're not angry or bitter, but you're just like, 'Damn, I wish that was me.' You're teammates, but you are kind of competing against each other.”

By the time he took the ice for his second German season in 2021-22, Timmins had made peace with the idea that hockey was ending.

Then Australia changed his relationship with the game.

“I’m actually so happy that I played another five seasons,” he said. “Now that I’m kind of at the tail end, I realize how precious it is to play.”

The pressure disappeared. Hockey became enjoyable again.

“It’s definitely not like back home where it’s cutthroat,” he said. “You find that enjoyment and that love for the sport again.”

At one point in the conversation, Timmins paused and reconsidered his answer.

Peak happiness in hockey, he said, probably came at age 14 or 15.

AAA tournaments. Hotel trips with parents. Mini sticks in the hallway.

“You’re not playing for money,” he said. “You’re just playing for happiness.”

Melbourne helped restore that feeling.

Timmins still laughs at how little he understood about Australian hockey before arriving. He assumed he would spend a few months in an obscure league before quietly returning home.

Instead, he discovered packed beginner classes, adults learning to skate for the first time in their 40s and 50s, and a hockey culture that felt refreshingly unguarded.

“In Canada, if you didn’t play as a kid, you’re probably never playing,” he said. “Here, people just try things.”

His partner Linda had never even attended a hockey game before meeting him. Neither had many of her friends. They kept coming back.

“Aussies obviously love contact sports,” Timmins said. “Once people see it, they love it.”

Hockey in Melbourne quickly became part of that connection too.

In 2023, Timmins helped lead Melbourne to the AIHL championship while producing offensive numbers that looked almost fictional. He had 82 points (33 goals, 49 assists) in 26 regular-season games and won the League MVP award, then added four more points (two goals, two assists) in three playoff games.

Yet the statistics were not what stayed with him.

What Timmins remembers most vividly is the reaction from his Australian teammates after the title-clinching victory.

“To see how passionate the Australian locals on our team were when we won and how excited they were, made it really special,” he said. “For those guys, this was their NHL.”

He could see it in their faces. The emotion, the pride, the significance of the moment.

“It made me feel like a kid again,” he said.​

The longer Timmins stayed in Melbourne, the more his role evolved.

At first, he arrived as an import player with NHL experience. Then he became a player-coach. This season, he returned to focusing strictly on playing while serving as team captain. Now he is building a business, Timmins Performance Training, centered around training and developing hockey players in Australia.

The idea emerged almost accidentally.

Back in Canada, off-ice hockey training had become standard long ago. In Australia, Timmins realized many young players simply did not have access to that structure or guidance.

"There’s no OHL (Ontario Hockey League) or CHL (Canadian Hockey League),” he said. “At 17, you basically jump straight into playing against adults.”

He saw talented teenagers struggling physically and mentally after that transition. Some quit hockey altogether.

Timmins wanted to help bridge the gap.

As soon as he launched his training business, the response surprised him. Parents began emailing almost immediately. Word spread quickly. The demand kept growing.

“They were seeing changes in their kids,” he said. “Confidence. Strength. Just feeling better about themselves.”

He now runs on-ice Monday sessions before school, trains adults before work, and spends much of his life moving between gyms and rinks across Melbourne.

“It’s exhausting,” he admitted. “But I’m loving it.”

His coaching philosophy sounds less like a former NHL player preaching skill and more like a veteran trying to simplify the sport. He talks constantly about positioning, habits, support, and helping teammates.

“The NHL was almost the easiest league I played in,” Timmins said. “Guys are always in the right spot.”

That understanding became one of the biggest things he wanted to pass along.

“I just hope I can change the way we think about the game here a little bit,” he said.

Earlier this year, Timmins received Australian residency status that replaced his partner visa. In hockey terms, this carries practical benefits. He no longer occupies an import spot on Melbourne’s roster, giving the team more flexibility.

Personally, it means something larger.

The temporary stop became permanent.

Timmins can apply for Australian citizenship next year and hopes to eventually represent the country internationally.

Fifteen years ago, the idea would have sounded absurd to him.

“If somebody told me this at 21,” he said, laughing, “I would have said, ‘You’re high. Absolutely not.’”

Yet his life now feels remarkably stable for someone who spent years bouncing across leagues and countries.

He has a home, a partner, a business, a community, and a future.

All because he said yes to one final hockey trip he never intended to last.

“I just kind of adopted this mindset,” Timmins said. “‘Say yes. Experience things.’”

Australia turned out to be much more than an experience.

For Scott Timmins, it became the place where hockey finally stopped feeling temporary.