Justin Bieber gives Melbourne Ice cold shoulder
UPDATE: POP superstar Justin Bieber has fled Melbourne 15 hours ahead of schedule after a frosty weekend with selfie-chasing fans and giving the cold shoulder to the city’s top-level ice hockey team.
Confidential
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POP superstar Justin Bieber has fled Melbourne 15 hours ahead of schedule after a frosty weekend with selfie-chasing fans and giving the cold shoulder to the city’s top-level ice hockey team.
Bieber’s Gulfstream V was supposed to leave Tullamarine for Brisbane at noon today, but Bieber bailed at 8.30pm last night.
He landed in Queensland 90 minutes later and was photographed smiling and throwing up peace signs in the back seat of a limousine.
His early departure followed a weekend of frustration over selfie-chasing fans and a cold shoulder to Melbourne’s top-level ice hockey team.
After requesting a game with, then snubbing Australian Ice Hockey League champions Melbourne Ice, Bieber found out it was too late to say sorry.
After scrapping plans at the eleventh hour to play with the team on Saturday, Bieber asked if they were available yesterday, in exchange for tickets to his Brisbane show tonight.
Melbourne Ice declined.
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It followed a weekend where Melbourne Ice players cancelled leave to appease Bieber’s wish to play with the team at the O’Brien Group Arena at Docklands.
He is believed to have also made specific requests about equipment, including a special hockey stick, and an age limit on the players around him.
Bieber, 23, wanted players of a similar age group.
However, late on Saturday Bieber ditched plans to play ice hockey, and opted instead for a boat ride.
He was later seen taking a night swim at Crown Resort.
“Despite being given the Labour Day long weekend off to rest by coaching staff … it was a once in a lifetime opportunity that had the team buzzing,” Melbourne Ice said in a media statement.
“As rumblings of a special appearance by visiting music superstar Justin Bieber to join the team began to circulate, plans were put in place for a scrimmage that no available player was willing to miss.
“Despite a non-appearance from Bieber just as the boys prepared to hit the ice, the playing group took the disappointment in their stride and chose to do what they do best: play some high level ice hockey.”
Officials said the team put aside the “high profile snub” to train for the coming IIHF World Championships in Romania.
The last time Bieber played ice hockey, at an NHL All-Star Celebrity Shootout match in January, he was slammed into the glass by hockey great Chris Pronger.
Bieber’s icy behaviour followed claims of cold-hearted encounters with fans at Southgate on Saturday, and a lukewarm commitment to looking joyful at Etihad Stadium on Friday.
But he was more upbeat poolside at Crown.
Trent Needham, 15, said: “He was happy to talk to everyone.
“He asked my sister to borrow her goggles, so she was pretty happy.”
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