Europe’s Interleague success

Six years after the formation of the Central European League, the competition's success has been confirmed with a larger number of teams and the introduction of an indoor league.

With plans to introduce umpiring initiatives and junior categories, organisers are confident it will continue to grow.

Norman Hughes, Continental Development Officer for Europe, explains.

The concept of the Central European League began in October 2000, with a meeting between representatives of Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia national associations and the European Hockey Federation.

During the meeting, a problem with women's hockey in these countries was identified, with the limited number of teams in Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia making difficult for their respective national associations to forms sustainable competitions.

To help solve this issue, Slovenia’s Anja Cipot suggested that matches be played between women's teams from Slovenia and Croatia, with perhaps even a women's league formed between these two countries. Since all four countries at the meeting were faced with the same problem, they agreed to do something about it.

Since the competitions in each country had already started, the national associations agreed that some kind of weekend tournament should be organised. So, the first outdoor Central European Interleague for women was played in May 2002.

Initially it was a one-weekend tournament for six teams (two from Croatia and Slovenia, one each from Hungary and Slovakia). With the European Hockey Federation Development Committee supporting the project presented by Croatia’s Denis Jelacic at a meetings after the initial tournament, the participating countries decided to elevate the interleague to a higher level.

A full league was agreed, but an importance was placed on it being a low cost competition because funding is always an issue in the South Central Zone of Europe.

It was decided that two teams from each country would play the 14-round league across four weekends in autumn and four weekends in spring, after which a final four tournament would be contested.

Teams make three away trips and host three weekend fixtures during the league. Each team brings their own umpire for matches, and every match is officiated by one host and one guest umpire. After 14 rounds of the league competition, the top four teams play the final four tournament each year in a different country.

After two years of the women's interleague, EHF decided to expand the competition to include the men. However since the men's competition from the competing nations was stronger than the women's, it was agreed that only the best two teams from each country would participate.

After the women’s competition had been in operation for four years and the men for two years, further expansion was agreed and an indoor league was created.

The indoor competition is played a week or two before the official European indoor Club championships as a preparation tournament and the format is the same as official EHF competitions.

However in the indoor league’s inaugural year in 2006, problems with finding a hall large enough (two pitches) to play both tournaments at the same time resulted in only the men's league being contested.

The format of the Central European Interleague was presented to South East European countries at the SE Development Forum in Sofia (Bulgaria) in October 2005 to give them an opportunity to see how competition could be sustained.

Participating countries intend to develop the interleague competition in the future, possibly to include younger age categories.

This wider co-operation between national associations in the zone could also result in projects involving umpiring, coaching, and mini-hockey festivals.