With the closure of Penrith Ice Palace and the sudden shutdown of Canterbury Ice Rink the ECSL has been forced to look into its options for the 2022 Playoffs. On Monday 12th September the team representatives and ECSL Executive met to discuss the finals format.
The teams have all voted to keep the finals series as per previous years and therefore the first semi finals will be this weekend (17th-18th September 2022).
On Sunday the 18th September The Raptors/N'Stars will play 3pm @ HISS, The Rebels/Bombers will be 3:30pm @ Erina.
Then there will be a break for two weeks (Inline National Championships + Long Weekend) and the second game of the semi finals will be on the weekend of the 8th and 9th October.
Grandfinals will proceed that the following weekend 15th + 16th of October and Game 3 (if required) on the 23rd October.
Finals Format
The ECSL finals series consists of:
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A 2 game semi-finals series involving the top 4 teams (1st vs 4th, and 2nd vs 3rd). The scores from the first game carry over to the second game.
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A best-of-3-games grand finals series comprising the winner of the 1st vs 4th semi-final versus the winner of the 2nd vs 3rd semi-final.
All finals series games are played in three timed periods as follows;
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First two periods: 20 minutes running time
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Third period: 15 minutes running time and 5 minutes stop time.
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There will be an ice-cut after period 2.
Finals series games that are drawn at the end of regular time will be determined by overtime not penalty shoot outs.
There will be a 5-minute warm-up time prior to the game. The clock will begin immediately counting down at the scheduled time as per IHNSW Guidelines.
Each team will be the home team for one game; and therefore responsible for game pucks, nets, scorekeepers and timekeepers for that game.
During running time, the time clock will only stop when the referee calls time-out.
The ECSL semi-finals are a cumulative aggregate based series, where the scores that are recorded at the end of the first game carry over to the second game. The score from game 1 is put up on the scoreboard at the beginning of game 2. If at the end of game 2 the score is tied then the game will go into sudden death overtime until a winner is declared. There is no overtime at the end of game 1.
Semi-finals handshake protocol: Even though the score carries over from game 1 to game 2, the end of game handshake with the officials and opposing team must be carried out after each game.
The ECSL grand final series is not aggregate but rather a best out of 3 game series. The first team to win 2 games will be declared ECSL Champions.
Each game in the grand final series must have a result, therefore a draw at the end of regular time will be decided by sudden death overtime, and not penalty shootout.
NORTHSTARS
BOMBERS
REBELS
HEAT
RAPTORS
