The Play Offs Primer

The season is now in what many refer to as the business end of the season.

The club has sold out nearly every home game in the past couple of months, and its thanks to all you Streatham fans, new and old. Every game is now a must win 6 pointers for us and our opponents as the race to crown the league champions and set seeding for the play offs goes into high gear. 

We at the club are mindful that with so many new fans coming through our doors recently. Some may be wondering what all this talk of the Steel City Showdown and play offs on our media channels was recently. To that end we got Chris from our media team to sit down and pen a little guide to the rather unique way we do hockey play offs here in the UK. 

Greetings Streatham fans, firstly thank you to everyone who has been helping to fill the High Road in recent weeks. You’ve all been a welcome addition to our hockey family here on the high road, adding your noise and energy to our hardcore regulars.

If like me you’ve now got the bug, you may be looking at the fixtures page and wondering what happens beyond that last fixture we have on March 22nd against Solent. And what those empty place holders that mention play offs and Sheffield are about? 

Those are the placeholders for the end of season play off games. While the big prize of the season is the league championship. UK hockey also runs a small end of season tournament to crown our play off champs of the season. 

Regular season hockey and play off hockey could not be more different. While one is a season long marathon, where losses can be overcome later in the season. The other is a 3-weekend sprint to the finish to decide who is the play off champion. 3 weekends of games where players, tired and carrying injuries from a long season have to lock in. And deliver 6 perfect games to win the play off championship. Culminating in the Steel City Showdown weekend in Sheffield

Now while we do borrow footballs league champions format, our play offs do not mimic what you see in football, in that the winners are promoted up a division. As there is no promotion or relegation in UK Hockey.

The format will be as follows:
The quarter Finals

The 2-day hockey format as we call it, 2 games where the slightest mistake can have season ending consequences for a team. Teams will be split into pairings based on where they finished in the regular season. 

1^st will play 8^{th |} 2^nd will play 7^{th |} 3^rd will play 6^{th |} 4^th will play 5^th 

They will then play 2 games over a weekend. With the scores from both games forming an aggregate score (another example of us borrowing from football) and heading on to the semi-finals the following weekend

The Semi Finals

Winner of 1st vs 8th will play winner of 4th vs 5th

Winner of 2nd vs 7th will play winner of 3rd vs 6th

Same as the quarter finals. 2 games over 2 days, and an aggregate score line. 

The Finals

The finals of UK hockey play offs are a different animal to anything in the sport as a whole. While other leagues hold multi game series to decide the play off champions. In UK Hockey we do things our own way. 

For the finals the 2-day format is dropped and is replaced by the 1 day 1 game model. This is because for the finals, we make a weekend of it. This is where Sheffield and the Steel City Showdown enter the picture. 

As this season the teams who have made the play off finals in the Southern divisions and the Northern divisions at NIHL 1 and NIHL 2 will play their regional finals and then a national final in Sheffield

The format is as follows:

Saturday

NIHL 2 South Play off final 

NIHL 2 North Play Off Final

NIHL 1 North Play Off Final

NIHL 1 South Play Off Final

Sunday

NIHL 2 South Play Off Final Winner v NIHL 2 North Play Off Final Winner

NIHL 1 South Play Off Final Winner v NIHL 1 North Play Off Final Winner

Winners of these 2 games are crowned Play off champions of NIHL 1 and 2