The Eredivisie ice hockey was the highest competition in this branch of sport in the Netherlands organized by the Dutch Ice Hockey Federation (NIJB) until the 2014/15 season. The winner of the division was at the same time national champion. The honorary division formed (mostly) the last competition of the ice hockey season, the cup competition and any other competitions were (usually) in advance.
In the 2015/16 season, the BeNe-league Ice Hockey started, organized by the KBIJF and the NIJB. They replaced the Belgian Elite League and the Eredivisie Ice Hockey respectively as the highest division in both countries. In addition to the competition title, this competition also fights for the country title in both countries.
HistoryAfter the Second World War, the Eredivisie Ice Hockey began in the 1945/46 season. The high days knew the highest division in the seventies and early 1980s. With the departure of the so-called Dutch Canadians, mainly sons of Dutch emigrants such as Jack de Heer and Larry van Wieren, the league blew slowly but surely dead. Certainly, then, it appeared that many clubs lived too high (too expensive importers from abroad or too dependent on a "sugar") and went bankrupt. Through a restart, the associations usually came to life again, but not in the old state and glory. However, this does not apply to Rotterdam, since the trip of triple international IJHC Rotterdam Panda's has no ice hockey more within the city limits.
Ice hockey is in the Netherlands to date a relatively small sport with naturally insufficient practitioners to create a big league. As a consequence, the same teams meet each other, which is not good for public interest. The fact that the division is the final part of the season and follows other competitions in which the honorary teams also compete against each other, aggravates this again. And it does not seem that change here soon comes. Due to the lack of Dutch talent, the clubs are still geared towards relatively expensive foreign players, which largely determine the appeal of the honorary division. These players are mainly funded from sponsorship revenues, which are linked to public interest. And hence the ice hockey is in a financial grip. For clubs at the lower levels, it is logically almost impossible to join the honors division.
In the past, it has been tried to enrich ice hockey with more teams of level. As of the mid-1960s, competition teams were set up with Dutch and Belgian teams. Since 1972/73 this was a separate league with the name Coupe de Lage Landen (CLL). The CLL was always held prior to the cup competition and the honorary division. And when the introduction and reintroduction (after a 1990-1995 absence) there was actually more publicity along the job. The Dutch and Belgian teams were daring. But in recent years the level difference has been very big in the disadvantage of the Belgians. A Belgian win on a Dutch team almost confounded to a unicum and the CLL could not be charmed anymore. In 2006, therefore, the CLL came to an end.
The Dutch clubs chose to replace the CLL for the Challenge Cup, a competition between honorary and first division teams. For the Dutch Ice Hockey Federation, the Challenge Cup had to offer a chance for lower clubs with young players to come in contact with the highest level and possibly play in the future. This was in line with the plans of some first division clubs to make the move to the league division. In the 2006/07 season, the performance of the first division teams was comparable, if not worse than that of the Belgian teams in the years before. In the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons, e
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