(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen)
 Schedule Dutch Major League finally released
Nederlands
 NIEUWEGEIN (Neth.) -
The game-schedule for the 2017 season in the Dutch Major League finally has officially been released on Wednesday (February 22).
With less than two months before Opening Day, it marks one of the latest dates ever (probably even the latest) that the new schedule was announced.
The late announcement had to do with the new set-up for this years leagues, but also the fact that the highest league will have only seven teams instead of eight.
On November 1 last year, Kinheim announced that it had withdrawn its team from the big league after almost all players had left the squad.
Instead, the Haarlem-based squad will play in the second highest league, the 'Overgangsklasse'.
Also, the Rookie League was discontinued.
In the 2006 season, the so-called 'second' teams of the eight big league-clubs played in an 18-team First Division and were joined by 10 other teams.
From the 2007 season on, these 'second' teams played in a league of their own, which was renamed into Rookie League from 2009 on.
This year, the 2006 format is being used again with the 'second' teams playing in the same league with the 'standard' teams, who last season played in the second highest league.
With a big league of seven teams and an 'Overgangsklasse' of 16 teams, one of the major discussions was the ruling regarding promotion and relegation.
While the official competition-regulations have not yet been published, the set-up already is more or less known.
In the previous three years, the big league was divided into two halfs.
The two best teams of the first half would qualify for the Play-Offs, as would the top-2 of the second half.
In case, these were the same teams, the next two teams would reach the Play-Offs.
This season, the league is not split.
After all teams have played 36 games, the top-four qualifies for the Play-Offs.
In the previous three years, these teams would start the postseason with bonus-points they earned from their final ranking.
This year, there will be no such points.
This season, the Play-Offs will have an additional round.
Through the 2010 season, there were real Play-Offs with the number one team meeting the number four team in a best-of-series, as did the team that finished in second and third place.
The two winners would advance to the Holland Series.
From 2011 on, the four teams that reached the Play-Offs would play a 3-game series against each other, resulting all teams playing games.
Again, the top-2 moved to the Final.
This year, the top-4 again will face each other, but instead of facing each other once in a 3-game series, they will play two 3-game series against each other.
This means that all four teams will play 18 games in this Play-Off Round with the teams in first and second place going to the Holland Series.
Besides the new Play-Offs set-up in 2011 for the top-4 to decide the championship, the bottom-4 teams would play the same sort of schedule, called Play-Downs.
The team that finished in last place in the Play-Downs would face the champion of the 'Overgangsklasse' in a best-of-series to decide promotion or relegation.
There will be no Play-Downs this season.
The teams that finish in fifth, sixth and seventh place this season in the big league will play in a Promotion/Relegation Series.
They will be joined by three teams from the 'Overgangsklasse'.
All teams will face each other twice, meaning the six teams in this pool will all play ten games.
The four best teams will play in the big league in 2018.
This years Major League-season opens on Thursday-evening April 13.
Again, all teams will face each other in 3-game series.
As there are only seven teams, one of them will off each week.
In the Opening Series, Dutch reigning champion Curaçao Neptunus has no games scheduled.
Vice-champion L&D Amsterdam Pirates opens in Haarlem against DSS, then plays at home on Saturday, April 15.
Hoofddorp Pioniers opens the season at home on April 13 against HCAW, then travels to Bussum two days later.
The third series will be played by Pickles UVV and De Glaskoning Twins.
UVV will play at home on Thursday and Sunday, while Twins plays at home on Saturday.
In the past few seasons, a team would play at home on Thursday and Saturday, then travel to their opponent for Sunday's game.
This year, it is back to the former set-up of playing at home on Thursday and Sunday, while playing away on Saturday.
There is one series that doesn't follow this set-up.
On Thursday, June 15, Hoofddorp Pioniers will play at home against Pickles UVV.
Instead of playing home and away in the following weekend, both games will be played at the site of UVV in Vleuten.
All 3-game series will be played again on Thursday-evening, then on Saturday- and Sunday-afternoon.
Except for the third (April 28-29-30) and fourth series (May 5-6-7) of the season, which will be played on Friday-Saturday-Sunday.
All night-games will start again at 7:30 PM and all day-games will begin at 2 PM.
The lone exception is that De Glaskoning Twins will start all its home games in the weekend at 3 PM.
As always, HCAW will start one game at 6 PM, which is on Sunday, June 4 during its annual international youth tournament.
Last season, Twins played almost all of their night-games at the site of The Hawks in Dordrecht, due to the insufficient light-installation at their home site in Oosterhout.
This year, Twins will play its five night-games at the site of PSV in Eindhoven.
Its sixth weekday-home game will be played in Oosterhout, but that will be a day-game.
That is the game against Vaessen Pioniers on Thursday, May 25, which will begin at 3 PM.
After games played on Sunday, June 25, the season will be interrupted for the World Port Tournament, which opens on July 1 and ends on July 9.
The season then resumes again on Thursday, July 13 and the following weekend.
On these days, only Curaçao Neptunus and L&D Amsterdam Pirates will play a 3-game series.
The other five teams will have no games scheduled, unless they have to play make-up games.
Neptunus and Amsterdam Pirates will be the two teams without regular season-games on June 8, 10 and 11.
On these dates, the two teams will be in Regensburg (Gemany) to participate in the European Champions Cup.
Last year, both teams participated in the same event, which then was held in Italy and San Marino.
There, Amsterdam Pirates dethroned Neptunus and went on to win the European Champions Cup.
Neptunus finished in fourth place.
The regular season ends on Sunday, August 6.
While the postseason-dates have not yet been announced, it almost surely will begin on Thursday, August 10 with the first games in the 4-team Play-Offs.
The Promotion/Relegation Series then will open two days later.
When all games can be played as scheduled and all teams have played their 18 games, the Play-Offs will end on Sunday, September 17.
With that, the best-of-seven Holland Series then will open on Thursday-evening, September 21.
But these postseason-dates all have yet to be confirmed.
(February 22)
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