Premier Hockey League
The logo of the Premier Hockey League
|
|
| Sport | Field Hockey |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2005 |
| Ceased | 2008 |
| No. of teams | 7 Hyderabad Sultans Sher-e-Jalandhar Maratha Warriors Bangalore Lions Chandigarh Dynamos Chennai Veerans Orissa Steelers |
| Country |
 India
|
| Last champion(s) |
Bangalore Hi-fliers |
| Most titles | Bangalore Hi-fliers (2 titles) |
| TV partner(s) | ESPN |
| Official website | premierhockeyleague.com |
The now defunct Premier Hockey League (PHL) was a professional league competition for field hockey clubs in the top division of the Indian hockey system. There were seven teams in the PHL. The competition was held every year from 2005 until 2008.
The competition created and promoted by Leisure Sports Management (LSM) and sanctioned by Indian Hockey Federation (IHF),was first played in 2005 involving 5 teams with active support from sports channel ESPN India. First season had two tiers division 1 and division 2 but from 2007 season onwards division 2 was scrapped. Except team winning 2006 division 2 championship rest all teams in division 2 were scrapped. The competition was disbanded in 2008.
The 5 inaugural members of the new Premier Hockey League in 2005 were Bangalore Hi-Fliers, Chennai Veerans, Hyderabad Sultans, Maratha Warriors and Sher-e-Jalandhar.
Regular season of PHL runs between December and January. Since the inaugural season, the format has varied regularly. According to the last format, each team plays each other once in a single round robin format (21 matches) in the regular league season, then the top four play the semifinals (1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3) followed by the finals, adopting a best of three format, for the top 2 teams. There are a total of 26 matches for each session.
During a PHL match, points that contribute to team standings can be earned in the following ways:
In case of no winner has been decided after completion of a match and two periods of extra time, the winner of the match will be determined by a shoot-out competition.
The fundamental aberration from the format of normal hockey games is the number of sessions. A normal 70 minute hockey game includes two sessions, each of 35 minutes each. The PHL has four sessions each of 17.5 minutes. This format is tailor made to include more advertising time in order to generate funds. Teams are allowed to take time-outs to chalk out new strategies during the course of the game.
If the match is deadlocked after full-time, the number of players of each team is gradually reduced till a result is obtained. A win within full-time fetches three points, whereas a win after full-time fetches two points to the winning team and one to the losing team. Each team is also allowed to field up to five international players.
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Wikipedia