HYS The Hague (Dutch: "Hijs Hockij Den Haag") is a professional ice hockey club in The Hague, Netherlands. Founded in 1933, the club's top team plays in the Dutch/Belgian BeNe League and competes annually in the Dutch National Championships and the Dutch Cup tournament.
The most successful hockey team in the Netherlands during the 1960s, it broke a 40-year national championship drought by winning the National championship in 2009. It has since repeated as champion in 2011, 2013, 2018, 2022 and 2023.[1]
Home games are held at de Uithof, a winter sports recreational facility in the west of the city. It has 2,050 regular seats, 160 VIP-box seats and 400 standing room spaces.
Name
"HYS" is pronounced "hice" and stands for "Haagsche IJshockey Stichting" ("Ice Hockey Club of the Hague"; when using capital letters, "Y" sometimes replaces the Dutch letter "ij").
Variations of the name have included "H.H.IJ.C. Den Haag" (Hague Hockey and Ice hockey Club) and "H.IJ.S. Hoky Den Haag". When competing from 2007-2015, its name was anglicized as "HYS The Hague". For the 2006-2007 season, the team was known as the "Calco Wolves".
History
The team was founded on April 16, 1933 as part of a three-team league (together with Tilburg and Amsterdam) called the Nederlandse IJshockey Bond. This league began play in 1934. In 1937-38 The Hague won the championship for the first time, repeating in 1938-39 and winning the Western Europe Cup. The team played all of its 1940 season in Tilburg and Amsterdam because of a lack of home arena.
Dutch hockey was interrupted during the German occupation from 1941–1944, but resumed in 1945 when an arena was rebuilt in The Hague. Nederlandse IJshockey Bond set up the Eeredivisie, the top Dutch ice hockey division, in 1946. HHIJC was once again competitive, winning the Eredivise championship in 1946 and 1948. In 1947, HHIJC merged with the Penguins, another Hague team.
The team was most dominant during the relaunch of the Eeredivie in the 1960s, repeating five times as champions from 1964 to 1969. The team then entered into a period of almost 40 years of decline, winning no championships and only intermittently playing in the Eredivisie from the 1980s to the early 2000s. In 1996, HHIJS merged with another Hague team, HOKY, to become the HHIJS HOKY Wolves.
In 2004, the team permanently re-entered the Eredivisie, finishing in last place (1-0-3-16 in 2005-06; 3-1-0-16 in 2006-2007). In 2007-08, it dropped the "Wolves" nickname and played as "HYS The Hague", a name reminiscent of successful teams of the past. That year, it had its first winning season in the Eredivisie since 1979, with a record of 14 wins, 2 overtime wins, 2 overtime losses and 6 regular season losses, good enough for third place.
In 2008-09, the team improved to second place overall with a record of 14-3-2-5, and won its first national championship in 40 years by defeating Tilburg in the playoff finals. This would have qualified the team to participate in the 2009-2010 Champions Hockey League, but the tournament was cancelled for financial reasons. Instead, the team participated in the 2009–10 IIHF Continental Cup, making it to the third stage.[2]
Since then, it has remained one of the top teams in the Netherlands, winning additional national championships in 2011, 2013, 2018, 2022, and 2023. It won its first Dutch Cup in the post-war era in 2011 and has since followed up with Dutch Cupt victories in 18, 2022, 2023 and 2024. It also won both North Sea Cup tournaments that were played, in 2011 and 2012.
Season results
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, OTW = Overtime Wins, OTL = Overtime Losses, L = Losses, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, Pts = Points
Although HYS struggled throughout the early 1970s to the early 2000s, the team has consistently been a league contender since 2008, along with Tilburg Trappers and Geleen Eaters. In the 2009-2010 season, HYS came in second place in the regular season; Nijmegen was first. HYS was released into the quarter-finals, but lost in the semi-finals of Tilburg in 5 games (2-3). In the finals, Tilburg lost in 3 games of Nijmegen (3-0 to Nijmegen).
In the 2009-2010 season, HYS lost the national Cup (an annual pre-season tournament) to Nijmegen. During
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