Emphatic vote heralds new era for hockey

Hockey will enter a new era next September with the introduction of a season-long Irish Hockey League for the first time, following an emphatic EGM vote yesterday.

The shift sees the top 10 men’s and women’s clubs taken out of their provincial leagues to play in the national competition, encompassing 18 league games over the course of the season.

It is a seismic move from the system in place since 2008 that sees clubs play both up to 18 games in their provincial leagues as well as up to seven games in the current Irish Hockey League along with three cup competitions.

The proposal came about with a view to providing more frequent high-quality fixtures for the country’s top players, avoiding the regular mismatches in the provincial leagues.

Wild-card qualifier

Having one elite competition will also be much more manageable to combine with an ever-increasing international schedule, while the

Irish Hockey Association

is also hopeful that the new league will be a much more marketable proposition.

Until this vote, Ireland was the only country in Europe without a full national league.

For the men’s competition, the top four clubs from this season in both Leinster and Ulster and the Munster champions will make up the 2015/16 season along with one wild-card qualifier.

To make up the women’s league, four Leinster, three Ulster, two Munster and one Connacht club will qualify for the inaugural season.

After that, there will be one automatic relegation and one demotion play-off position for the ninth place finisher. Promotion will be earned via an eight-team, end-of-season qualifier system off the back of the regional leagues.

Many reservations were expressed in the build-up to the EGM, most forcefully by Ulster Hockey, which expressed serious concerns about the consultation process.

Increased costs and timing clashes with schools hockey were also cited as big concerns with the northern branch feeling such arguments were being largely ignored by the IHA.

Those concerns were reiterated at the EGM, with executive manager Angela Platt saying that while the idea has merit for the top end of the sport, on balance, it would do damage at grassroots level.

She added that there were “no changes to these key issues with no choices or alternatives” on the table and branded the IHA’s promotion of the IHL proposal as “divisive”.

The proposal was passed with 87 per cent voting in favour of introducing the full IHL.