As the EIHL season is drawing to a close, the play-off weekend 2014 is approaching. It will once again be held in Nottingham and the final four hockey weekend will be the grand finale of the EIHL season. Fans of all ten teams will come down to Nottingham Capital FM arena to celebrate the end of another action packed Elite league season and see the grand final as the final two teams battle it out to become overall champions in front of pretty much the whole EIHL. To buy tickets, click this link: https://www.capitalfmarena.com/Online/playoffs. If you live far away from Nottingham, be sure to book hotels. Premier Inn is only five minutes away, so be sure to search Premier inn on a search engine for more details.
How does it work?
For anyone whose new to ice hockey here's a guide to how the play-offs work:
The top eight teams at the end of the season go through to the play-off quarter finals. This means the bottom two teams will be eliminated and will play no further part in the season.
However, the top eight who go through will play a two legged quarter final against the another team and the match-ups are decided like this:
1st vs 8th
2nd(Or Gardiner conference champions) vs 7th
3rd vs 6th
4th vs 5th
All of these are played the week before the play-offs and the match-ups will play twice at each others venues. The aggregate added up score will decide the winner. The winners of each quarter final will go through to the big weekend where on the Saturday, the two semi finals are played. Unlike the quarters, these are decided by just one game. One match is played the afternoon, the other in the evening then on the Sunday, the losers of the semis play each-other in a bronze medal match early morning the next day. At 2pm, the Elite league awards show takes place. In this, awards are given out to players from all ten teams for things like best player, best goalie, best coach and much more.
Then at 4pm, the biggest game of the British ice hockey season, the Rapid Solictors Elite ice hockey league play-off final! The whole season comes down to this where the winners are crowned the play-off champions 2014.
Previous winners...
The EIHL has run since 2003-04, here are all ten seasons champions...
2004: Sheffield Steelers completed a double in the opening season beating arch-rials, Nottingham Panthers 2-1 in a blistering final!
2005: Coventry Blaze completed a grand slam season, again with Nottingham Panthers being the victims as they won 2-1 but this time the final went to sudden death over-time when Blaze sealed a memorable season winning all three trophies available at the time.
2006: Newcastle vipers, who just missed out on the EIHL regular season championship in second to Belfast Giants, beat them in the semi final to set up a showdown with Sheffield Steelers in which again, the final had a 2-1 scoreline to see Vipers as that years champions.
2007: Nottingham panthers had a hard league campaign that year but got their first play-off title in 18 years as they beat Cardiff Devils 2-1 to clinch their first EIHL play-off championship! Shootout: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=futpzG3yHpw
2008: Sheffield Steelers became the first team to win two EIHL play-off titles as they played against the Coventry Blaze looking to do the same thing but it was Steelers who won the first ever final to not finish 2-1 as the final score was 2-0.
2009: It was a double for the Steelers, as another 2-0 win, but this time against big enemies, the Nottingham Panthers, saw them with back to back play-off championships. Montage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dS8eom4HAI
2010: It was a historic 10th anniversary season for the Belfast Giants. They had not only played a game against the NHL's Boston Bruins, but won the play-offs in a 3-2 shootout game against the Cardiff Devils. Winning penalty shot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZuChfzVesc
2011: It had been a struggle for the Panthers league wise but a challenge cup added to their trophy cabinet then got doubled with a 5-4 win over Cardiff Devils in a thrilling comeback final. Highlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYOyIQnyYR0
Panthers did a double once again, and beat Cardiff Devils again, 2-0 this time around! It had been a memorable year and was going to be hard to top, but they didn't know what was coming next season did they?!?! Highlights of the semi and final: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeMBtxfwnBY
It had also been a good play-off campaign for Hull Stingrays, winning their quarter finals against the Sheffield Steelers to reach their first play-offs weekend! But a terrible semi final saw them get battered by soon to be champions, Nottingham Panthers 10-3!
2013: Nottingham Panthers best season in history saw a grand slam of all three major trophies including a first EIHL regular season title in fifty six years! They won 3-2 in overtime against Belfast Giants with Jordan Fox scoring the golden goal! Highlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEKraAfQbPo
Are you ready?
The big weekend is on the 5th and 6th of April at the Capital FM arena, Nottingham. I promise you, its a fantastic weekend as fans from all ten teams come. Theres off ice fun too so be sure to join in! You will have a great time even if your team doesn't qualify as all teams will be participated somehow and thats a guarantee! Tickets on sale NOW!!!!!
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