The German Development League (German: Deutsche Nachwuchsliga, DNL) is the elite junior league of the

German Ice Hockey Federation The German Ice Hockey Federation (), commonly abbreviated as DEB, is the governing federation of German ice hockey associations. It was established on 16 June 1963 in Krefeld. Until 1990 it served only the old Federal Republic of Germany and West ...

. It was founded in 2000 in cooperation with the national hockey associations. Its objective is to educate and care for young German

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...

players, as well as to serve as an introduction into the German professional leagues of the sport, including the

Deutsche Eishockey Liga The Deutsche Eishockey Liga (for sponsorship reasons called "PENNY Deutsche Eishockey Liga") (; English: ''German Ice Hockey League'') or DEL, is a German professional ice hockey league and the highest division in German ice hockey. Founded in ...

(DEL). There are presently 15 DNL teams and 16 DNL2 teams. Until 2010, the DNL included players up to the age of 17 (U18). For the 2010/11 season, the age groups were frozen for the first time, and U19 teams then played in the DNL. After the age groups were frozen again for the 2018/19 season, U20 teams have been taking part since then. Since 2018, the U20 and U17 teams have played in three or two divisions.

Teams

References

External links

DNL
5 Junior ice hockey leagues {{Icehockey-stub