The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be either a single game, a series of games, or a tournament, and may use a single-elimination system or one of several other different playoff formats. Playoff, in regard to international fixtures, is to qualify or progress to the next round of a competition or tournament.
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
- One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
- A competition involving a number of matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.
In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of September. In other team sports, like association football or basketball, it is generally from August or September to May although in some countries – such as Northern Europe or East Asia – the season starts in the spring and finishes in autumn, mainly due to weather conditions encountered during the winter.
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, whose winner becomes the tournament champion. Each match-up may be a single match or several, for example two-legged ties in European sports or best-of series in North American pro sports. Defeated competitors may play no further part after losing, or may participate in "consolation" or "classification" matches against other losers to determine the lower final rankings; for example, a third place playoff between losing semi-finalists. In a shootout poker tournament, there are more than two players competing at each table, and sometimes more than one progresses to the next round. Some competitions are held with a pure single-elimination tournament system. Others have many phases, with the last being a single-elimination final stage, often called playoffs.
The Apertura and Clausura tournaments is a split season format for Spanish-speaking sports leagues. It is a relatively recent innovation for many Latin American football leagues in which the traditional association football season from August to May is divided in two sections per season, each with its own champion. Apertura and Clausura are the Spanish words for "opening" and "closing". In French-speaking Haiti, these are known as the Ouverture and the Fermeture, while in English-speaking Belize, they are respectively the Opening and Closing seasons. When used in the United States and Canada, they are known as the Spring and Fall seasons.
There are a number of formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the single elimination, the best-of- series, the total points series more commonly known as on aggregate, and the round-robin tournament.
In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.
The Thunder Bay North Stars are a junior A ice hockey team from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. They are a member of the Superior International Junior Hockey League.
The Thunder Bay Flyers were a Junior "A" ice hockey team from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.
The PBA Commissioner's Cup is a tournament of the Philippine Basketball Association. Along with the PBA Governors' Cup, the tournament is one of the two competitions in a PBA season that allows teams to hire a single foreign player, also known as an "import". The tournament was first held in 1993 as the PBA season's second competition.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs is the elimination tournament held to determine the league champion. An annual best-of-seven contest, the NBA playoffs are held after the league's regular season and its preliminary postseason tournament, the NBA play-in tournament.
The National Ringette League (NRL) (French: Ligue Nationale de Ringuette, LNR) is the premier league for the sport of ringette in North America and Canada's national league for elite ringette players aged 18 and up. The NRL is not a women's variant of a more well-known men's league or sport like professional women's ice hockey or bandy; one of ringette's distinctive features is that all of its players are girls and women. As such, the NRL is the continent's first and only winter team sports league whose entire athlete roster is made up of women.
The 2015–16 National Ringette League season for the sport of ringette was the 12th season of the National Ringette League and began on October 3, 2015 and ended on April 9, 2016.
The 2014–15 National Ringette League season for the soort of ringette was the 11th season of the National Ringette League and began on September 27, 2014 and ended on March 1, 2015.
The 2013–14 National Ringette League season for the sport of ringette was the 10th season of the National Ringette League and began on October 5, 2013 and ended on March 9, 2014.
The 2016–17 National Ringette League season for the sport of ringette was the 13th season of the National Ringette League and began on October 2, 2016 and ended on April 1, 2017.
Canadian Ringette Championships, (French: Championnats Canadien d'Ringuette), sometimes abbreviated CRC, is Canada's annual premiere national ringette tournament for the best ringette players and teams in the country. It encompasses three age/class divisions: Under-16 (U16), Under-19 (U19) and the seasonal championship for Canada's National Ringette League (NRL). The competition is usually held in the month of April. The first CRC was held in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1979. The National Ringette League playoffs are the knockout match, round robin and tournament for determining the champion for National Ringette League.
The Atlantic Attack is a ringette team in the Canadian National Ringette League (NRL) that mostly consists of players from Atlantic Canada and is based in Dieppe, New Brunswick. The team competes in the Eastern Conference in the White division and was founded in 2011. Its home arena is in Cocagne, New Brunswick. In their 7th season, the Atlantic Attack won their first National Ringette League Playoff title. In the past the Attack also competed against Bourassa Royal before that NRL team was discontinued.
The Manitoba Herd is a ringette team in the National Ringette League's (NRL) Western Conference. The team is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The team was previously called the Manitoba Intact.
