National League (ice hockey)


The National League is a professional ice hockey league in Switzerland and is the top tier of the Swiss league system. Prior to the 2017–18 season, the league was known as National League A. During the 2018–19 season, the league had an average of 6,949 spectators per game which is the highest among European leagues. The capital city's club SC Bern has been ranked first of all European clubs for 18 seasons and had an average attendance of 16,290 after the regular season. The ZSC Lions are another club in the top ten of European ice hockey attendance, ranking seventh with 9,694 spectators.

Season structure

During the regular season, each of the 12 teams play 50 games. The top eight teams after the regular season qualify for the playoffs to determine the Swiss champion in best-of-seven series. The bottom four teams in the standings play a relegation tournament, called playouts, in which each team retains their regular season points and play an additional six matches. Following those matches, the two bottom ranked teams will play each other in a best-of-seven series, with the loser then playing the winner of the Swiss League playoffs in a best-of-seven series for a spot in the successive NL season.

Current teams

Import players

The current gentlemen's agreement allows teams to dress up a maximum of four non-Swiss players for each game. There is no official rule as this would be against Swiss laws to limit foreign workers in a given enterprise. This agreement isn't directly related to Swiss citizenship as players with a different nationality but with a Swiss player-license are considered as Swiss players, thus they don't count as import players. Current examples of this scenario are players like Floran Douay and Tim Bozon with Genève-Servette HC or Justin Krueger and Josh Jooris with Lausanne HC. They all play with a Swiss player-license as they have spent a good majority of their childhood playing hockey with junior teams in Switzerland yet they don't possess Swiss citizenship. Such players would not be able to play in the NL if it wasn't for their Swiss player-license as they wouldn't be considered good enough to use an import player spot on any team. Those spots are usually reserved for players who have had a good NHL career or players with great stats and performances in the AHL, SHL, KHL or Liiga.
The subject of import players has been and still is a huge subject of debates among team owners and GMs. Some of them wish to allow more than four import players per game in order to reduce the salary of stars Swiss players and the others want to keep that limit to four players to allow more Swiss players to play on the top-6 and on special units.

Media coverage

NL games are only available in Switzerland and MySports is the league's official broadcaster, airing all regular season and playoffs games. MySports pays CHF 35 million per year to broadcast NL games and selected SL games. Games are available with German, French and Italian comments.
The SRG SSR airs regular season games highlights after each round and two selected games per playoffs night in all three languages.

Past champions

Swiss National Championship Serie A
Swiss International Championship Serie A
ClubWinnersWinning Years
HC Davos
31
1926, 1927, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944,
1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1950, 1958, 1960, 1984, 1985, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2015
SC Bern
16
1959, 1965, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1997, 2004, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019
EHC Arosa
9
1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1980, 1982
ZSC Lions
9
1936, 1949, 1961, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018
HC Lugano
7
1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1999, 2003, 2006
HC La Chaux-de-Fonds
6
1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973
EHC Kloten
5
1967, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996
EHC Biel
3
1978, 1981, 1983
EHC St. Moritz
3
1922, 1923, 1928
HC Bellerive Vevey
3
1909, 1919, 1920
HC Bern
3
1916, 1917, 1918
HC Les Avants
2
1912, 1913
HC Rosey-Gstaad
2
1921, 1925
HC Villars
2
1963, 1964
Club des patineurs de Lausanne
1
1911
EHC Visp
1
1962
EV Zug
1
1998
Grasshopper-Club Zürich
1
1966
HC Château-d’Œx
1
1924
HC La Villa Lausanne
1
1910
SC Langnau
1
1976