ANKARA B.B vs BOĞAZİÇİ PATEN (this is Turkish for Bosphorus)
ŞİRİNTEPE vs ERZURUM
It looks like the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation (TBHF) has taken 5 teams and put them in a separate Super League (SÜPER LİG KLASMAN MÜSABAKALARI) which seems like its a classification season for these teams. Aside from the 4 mentioned above the other team is ANKA (not my favourite Turkish club!).
The men's Super League is set to start on February 19 and the teams that are participating are:
BASKENT SK (my old club)
ANKARA UNIVERSITY (defending league champions)
ÇIKAN TAKIM (no idea who they are)
KOCAELI
Seems like the TBHF listened to my advice I stated on numerous occasions last season: fewer teams, and a shorter season. The Super League is set to finish in March, but of course we all know we cannot bank on that happening because a schedule is never official in Turkey until the season is over.
But overall, I think this is a step in the right direction to have fewer teams in the Super League and only have a month long season because they typically only play 6-10 games anyways.
Besides Baskent's import signings I have not heard of any other teams signing players before the January 31 deadline. But I must remind everyone that the TBHF has a way of bending the rules so some teams can still get players in to play.
I have not heard anything about the women's league this year, but I do know that it will be played (hopefully!).
Good luck to the teams this year and I hope that the season is a success. If not, the TBHF can always hire me and I will bring over all my hockey buddies and show Turkey how to run a real hockey Federation!
They scheduled the games for the "classification tournament" the week of the games (meaning we found out Tuesday about our game Friday. I play for Bogazici and we had to bend over backwards to even get our goaltender to be able to play as he had scheduled time out of the country months prior. This "classification tournament" lasted 3 games (in one weekend), but of course the last game our opponents didn't even bother showing up. In any case, the thing that most infuriated me was that out of 5 teams in the classification tournament, only the top team went up to play in the Superlig while the rest were done for the entire year. I would argue that the top 2 should go up to Superlig and the bottom 3 should go down to the 1. division since neither had started prior to this tournament. Especially when it was obvious that the top two teams were of equal skill (one goal separated them in the game they played against each other) while the other 3 were far inferior. Instead, the other 4 teams were left with no more games to play this season at all after practicing for 4 months. The 1. division teams who did not get into the classification tournament got another two months of hockey. There seems to be no real reason why any team would try to get itself in the qualification tournament if it knows that not coming in first means no more games. Makes no sense. I agree about too many teams. I'm not sure how long the season should be in terms of months, but I would hope for at least 10 games. If travel is such a cost issue for teams, than make regional conferences between Istanbul teams (Izmir, Izmit, Istabul) and Ankara (Erzerum, Ankara).
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