League Structure
In England and Wales, 28 teams play in the British Women's Leagues. The top 10 teams in the country play in the Premier League, while the remaining 18 teams play in a regionalised Division One, equally divided into North, Midlands and South.
In the Premier Division, the sides play each other, one home, once away, in a dual round robin format, with the team ranked highest being declared champion of the league. In Division 1, teams are seeded according to their previous season's performance. The top three seeded teams, and the bottom three teams, play each other four times each. The team with the highest points at the end of the season is declared the regional champion.
At the end of the season, the top four Premier sides, and top three Division One sides from each region converge for the 'Trophy Weekend'. The Premier Sides play for the Chairman's Cup, while the Division One sides play for the Division One Trophy.
In addition to the playoffs, there is Promotion and Relegation between the Premier and Division 1 leagues. In 2004/05, this was decided with a Playoff Weekend at Coventry. The Division One sides played first in a one-off game, then the following day the winner of that game played the 10th ranked team in the Premier league, to decide who played in the Premier and Division 1 leagues for the following season.
In 2007-08 season the EIHA introduced women's U16 teams to the league structure. Three teams (Oxford, Streatham and Bracknell) were created in a Southern Division and four teams were created in the women's U16 Northern Division. For 2008-09, Oxford folded and was replaced by Peterborough in the South.
Read more about this topic: Women's Ice Hockey In Great Britain
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