At the Polish Hockey Federation's (PZHL) meeting at Torun a few days ago, the president of PZHL, Zdzisław Igielewicz, announced the federation's intentions to reform the Polish Hockey League.

The key points in the reforms will be the following:

• The format of the regular season will be changed. The regular season will be split into a preliminary and a qualifying stage. The six best teams in the top tier Ekstraliga from the preliminary stage will be ensured a place in the playoffs, while the remaining four other teams plus the two best teams from the second tier 1 Liga will compete for the two remaining playoff slots. In the preliminary stage the 10 teams will play 18 rounds (2x9) and in the qualifying stage, the six teams in each group will play 20 rounds (4x5).

With this change, the Polish Hockey League will largely follow the format used in other European leagues such as the Austrian Erste Bank league and the Danish Albank league.

The reformed Polish league may, however, also comprise novelties:

• One proposal which is currently being discussed is that the four best teams in the first group of the qualifying stage will be awarded a one game advantage in the playoff quarterfinals when the play against the lower ranking teams from the second group. In other words, if the quarterfinals are played as a best of five series, the top 4 teams would thus only need to win 2 games in order proceed to the next round. If a best of seven series is chosen, they would need to win three games.

The reforms will also change the number of foreign players, the teams can dress for  a game:

• The number of foreign players that can be dressed for a game will be reduced from 5 to 3 per team. If a team use a foreign goaltender, it can only dress two foreign players per game.

This rule change is perhaps the most controversial. Many clubs in the league have already signed more than three foreign players and the club managers are arguing that the salaries on foreign players will be wasted if players can't be dressed for all games. According to the clubs, the rule changes have been made too late to come into effect by 2009-10. In an attempt to accommodate the Polish hockey federation, the clubs have suggested that the reduction of foreign players be phased in in two stages, starting with a reduction of foreign players to 4 in 2009-10 and another reduction to 3 in 2010-11. But the president of the federation, Zdzisław Ingielewicz, hasn't agreed to this solution.

The 10 teams competing in the Ekstraliga in 2009-10 are:

Comarch Cracovia Kraków
GKS Tychy
Wojas Podhale Nowy Targ
Energa Stoczniowiec Gdańsk
Akuna Naprzód Janów
KH Pol-Aqua Zagłębie Sosnowiec
JKH GKS Jastrzębie
TKH Nesta Toruń
Ciarko KH Sanok
TH Unia Oświęcim

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