DIVISION one men's and women's hockey on the Mid North Coast has been revamped with the formation of the Mid North Coast Hockey League.
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This will involve sides from the Manning and Port Macquarie-Hastings associations.
While team nominations are still open, officials hope there'll be six teams in both the men's and women's competition. Manning sides Tigers, Chatham and Sharks are confirmed starters in the men's division, while it appears certain that Wingham, Chatham, Sharks and Tigers will be involved in the women's competition.
The league will be run by a committee comprised of three representatives from both associations.
"Six weeks ago we had nothing. Now we have what we think will be a competition that will be very positive for division one hockey on the Mid North Coast,'' competition director Tony Lewis from Taree said.
He said the input and cooperation from both associations has been excellent.
Both associations will also run A-grade men's and women's competitions and Mr Lewis said it is the plan to run the hockey league grand finals in July. He said the hockey league will have some different rules to the domestic competitions. This includes having a two grand final series if there are teams involved from the Hastings and Manning associations. One would be in Taree and the other in Port.
"If both grand finalists are from the one association then we'll only play a one game grand final,'' he said.
However, it has been decided to play a three-team finals series with the team finishing minor premier going straight to the grand final, with second and third to playoff for the other spot.
Mr Lewis said the rules for this are still being fine tuned, but he said they will be in place before the start of the season-proper on Friday, April 16.
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There will be MNC Hockey League games played at Taree and Port Macquarie in the preferred 3pm and 4.30 timeslots every weekend. Senior hockey in the Manning will be played on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons this year.
Mr Lewis is confident the hockey league concept can expand to eventually take in teams from Coffs Harbour and possibly Grafton.
"But we'll get this year going first and then look at expansion,'' he said.
For the first time Manning Hockey has appointed a grading committee and Mr Lewis said this will look to ensure the top players in this association are involved in the elite competitions.
Mr Lewis said that when the Manning teams play each other in the Hockey League the points will also count towards the domestic A-grade competition. There will only be three teams in the Manning men's A-grade.
"But we're looking at growing the number of A-grade teams in this area - Taree West is one possibility while Gloucester is continuing to build,'' he added.
