The Leeds Chiefs face the mouthwatering prospect of having four home games against each of local rivals Hull and Sheffield this season, as the NIHL has today announced how the season will be structured.

The ten teams in the NIHL National League will be split into two conferences. This is common in ice hockey, even within the UK. Conferencing allows leagues to reduce travel and to balance the strength of the teams.

The conferences will be:

North – Hull Pirates, Leeds Chiefs, MK Lightning, Sheffield Steeldogs, Telford Tigers

South – Basingstoke Bison, Bracknell Bees, London Raiders, Peterborough Phantoms, Swindon Wildcats

Clubs will play teams within their own conference 8 times (4 home, 4 away) and teams in the other conference 4 times (2 home, 2 away). This will give a league season of 52 games (26 home, 26 away).

This will present the perfect opportunity for the Leeds Chiefs to build rivalries against Hull and Sheffield with the potential for grudges to carry over into the next game and to see who will win the battle of the Yorkshire clubs.

After the end of the league season there will be a playoff tournament. The top eight clubs from the overall league table (including all conference and non-conference games) will qualify. The eight teams will be put into two groups and they will play each other once home and away. The top two teams from each group will qualify for a playoff final weekend in Coventry with one off semi-finals and a final.

There will also be a National Cup. This will take the format of a group with all ten team and the top four teams will qualify for the semi-finals. There will be no additional games for the group element, instead each club’s first home game against each of the other nine clubs will count as both a league and a cup game.

The season will begin on the 14th/15th September and will be likely to last until late March/early April.

We won’t know the fixtures for at least a month yet but today is another step towards the Leeds Chiefs’s first game and the excitement will only continue to build until then.