As part of the restructuring and realignment of the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) Through the POWERPLAY 26 concept, the games of the Young Talent classes DNL and Student Bundesliga will be carried out in an adapted structure in the coming 2016/17 season.
In the future, the German Young Talent League (DNL) will no longer only consist of the 12 existing teams, but will also be expanded to include teams from Iserlohn, Dresden, Ingolstadt and Schwenningen. The 16 teams are divided into two groups (red group and blue group) of eight teams each based on their sporting performance. The red group includes Mannheim, Cologne, Berlin and Bad Tölz, as well as the four league newcomers in the blue group. The teams in places 5-12 in the 2015/16 season will play a qualifying round at the start of the new season, which will determine the remaining four places in the red and blue groups. The DNL champions will be determined at the end of the season through playoff rounds.
In the DNL2 South, Ravensburg, Deggendorf and Heilbronn will be added to the existing teams. The DNL2 game operation takes place analogously to the past 2015/2016 season in the two North and South seasons, which determine their respective champions at the end of the season using playoffs. The two champions will then contest the final for the German DNL2 championship.
Ravensburg, Munich and Nuremberg will also take part in the Student Bundesliga games as “newcomers” in the coming season. The teams will be divided into two performance classes in the north and south, similar to the previous 2015/16 season. A regional evaluation round is followed by a nationwide championship round. The well-known student championship in tournament format will no longer exist in the coming season, because in the student Bundesliga the champion will also be determined from places 1-4 via playoffs after the end of the main round.
Ernst Höfner, head coach for talent and club support: “We are also building on our vision in the games of the young talent teams and will realign the games of the DNL and Student Bundesliga in the coming 2016/17 season based on the POWERPLAY 26 concept. The aim is to increase the quality of gaming operations and thus develop competitive sports locations.”