HKHAWS 22-23 Circular No. 4 - Competition Bye-Laws Updates & Experimental Bye-Laws

Attachment: HKHAWS Competition Bye-laws 15 August 2022 (Draft) 15 August 2022

Dear Convenors, 

Competition Bye-Laws Updates & Experimental Bye-Laws

The WS has considered the challenges faced by clubs in recent years, in particular with the departures from Hong Kong and the reduction of school and youth hockey activities due to Covid-19 restrictions.  The WS proposes to introduce an experimental bye-law to help youth players get more minutes on a pitch and allow clubs more flexibility so they can compete this season with smaller squads.  The intention is to help support the development of our younger players.

Each team will be allowed to designate up to 5 U21 Players in their registered squad.  These 5 players may play two games in one day – one for their registered team and a second for the team immediately above or below their registered team.  We hope this will encourage for example giving younger players pitch time in higher grades to help build up their confidence and abilities gradually.  However in order to preserve the integrity of the competition U21 players who were registered premier players the previous season and current senior national squad players may not be Designated U21 Players.

In addition, the usual player movement rules (i.e. 3 games up and no games down etc) would not initially apply to the player movements of the Designated U21 Players. The Committee will however review this rule at the end of the first round of the smallest divisions.

As noted above the focus is to encourage our youth to get more match play and some assistance to the many clubs who are struggling with lower player numbers at this time.  However when using this rule clubs should not deliberately obtain any unfair advantage as this would go against the spirit of fair play and could impact the integrity of the competition. 

Please note that there are other tidying up and clarificatory changes that have been made to the competition bye-laws.  

Please let us know by 28 August 2022 if you have any questions or comments on the experimental byelaws and other amendments to the competition bye-laws.

Kind Regards,

HKHAWS