Hello. Looking for some clarity on this as I can’t find anything on line in English. I know that Humenne won the Slovak 2nd league playoff championship. Does that automatically mean that they go up to the top league? Or are there other factors in play such as arena size, ownership, etc…
Thanks, any info Is appreciated…
It is complicated to reply because we do not know how top Slovak league will look like next season. Right now we are hearing from media & various statements that majority of clubs created a new league called PHL as a rival to current Extraliga run by the Slovak hockey federation (SZLH). According to media statements, PHL would be outside IIHF, so no transfers, their players would not play for Slovak NT etc.
The information on who is who is changing all the time. Latest news are as follows:
PHL - HC Košice, HKM Zvolen, HC Nové Zámky, HK Poprad, HC‘05 Banská Bystrica, HK Nitra, MHk 32 Liptovský Mikuláš, HK Dukla Trenčín, HC 21 Prešov & HK Spišská Nová Ves
Extraliga - Slovan Bratislava, HK Dukla Michalovce, HC Humenné
The conflict is on who will run the league & control revenues - clubs or SZLH? Of course there are other reasons as well.