Elite League line-up confirmed

Four Scottish clubs will compete in the Elite Ice Hockey League next season.

Braehead Clan, Fife Flyers, Dundee Stars and Edinburgh Capitals all confirmed yesterday they are in, along with new teams, Milton Keynes Lightning and Guildford Flames.

An EIHL board meeting confirmed the move yesterday but the previous two Conference system of five teams each has been replaced with three Conferences, each with four teams – the Scottish teams form Conference One.

Each team will play teams in their own conference four times at home and four times away and face teams in the other conferences twice at home and twice away.

This will give each team a total of 28 home games and 28 away games for a total schedule of 56 games, up four games from last year.

The Group Stage of the Challenge Cup will remain, with the 12 teams divided into three groups.

Group A: Braehead Clan, Manchester Storm, Nottingham Panthers and Sheffield Steelers.

Group B: Belfast Giants, Dundee Stars, Edinburgh Capitals and Fife Flyers.

Group C: Cardiff Devils, Coventry Blaze, Guildford Flames and Milton Keynes Lightning.

The top two in each group will advance to the quarter-final stage of the competition with two wild card teams completing the quarter-final line up.

The wild cards will be made up of the two teams with the most points that do not automatically qualify.

The Elite League begins on the weekend of September 9-10.