Oberliga Nord starts on September 24th and the Oberliga Süd on October 07th
As part of a video conference this week, the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund finalized the plans for the new 2021/2022 season together with the major league teams.
The Oberliga Nord, which will start with a strength of at least 13 planned teams, will begin its season on Friday, September 24th, 2021 due to the probably higher number of games, while the Oberliga Süd will only follow suit on Thursday, October 07th, 2021 with a minimum strength of 12 teams. The final number of participating teams will be determined and announced after completion of the admission process, the deadline for submitting documents is June 15, 2021.
A first opening game in each season was also set for the two start dates. While in the Oberliga Süd the first match day extends over two consecutive days, the Oberliga Nord the remaining games on the first matchday on the weekend of Deutschland Cups catch up in November.
Both leagues will complete a double round until March 6, 2022, before going into the pre-playoffs in best-of-three mode. An interlinking of the north and the south is already planned from the round of 18, which begins on March 2022, 2021. The games from the round of 2022 onwards will take place in best-of-five mode. The champion of the 01/2022 Oberliga season will be determined after game five of the final series on May XNUMXst, XNUMX at the latest.
Each season also plays the play-down series from eleventh place in the table at the same time as the play-offs. The exact mode will be announced after the admission process has been completed.
DEB-League leader Markus Schubert: “After an extremely difficult 2020/21 season, the clubs were clearly looking forward to a 2021/22 league season that could hopefully be carried out properly. Thanks to the support from the state, the clubs now have early planning security until the end of December and, in contrast to last season, can prepare properly. We all got to know how to deal with the coronavirus in a major league season and were able to learn important lessons. The signs for a decent season are currently good. Nevertheless, when planning, we will take into account the known hurdles during the pandemic, so that we will be immediately prepared for any scenario during game operations.”