Amsterdam chases rare double title in 33 years of playoffs

In the men's competition, Amsterdam faces Rotterdam, while in the women's final Den Bosch is the opponent. Two completely different opponents, but the same stakes: the national title. And for Amsterdam also a piece of hockey history.

Since the introduction of the play-offs - for the women in 1992-1993, for the men in 1994-1995 - the double title has only been celebrated three times. HGC did it in 1995-1996, Den Bosch in both 1997-1998 and 2000-2001. Since then, for a quarter of a century, no club came close. Den Bosch is the only club that even managed it twice, both times with Amsterdam as the losing finalist in the women's side.

Eight previous double finalists
For Amsterdam itself, this is a recurring theme. The club is in both play-off finals at the same time for the ninth time this season - no one has done it more often. But in the eight previous editions, things went wrong at least once: sometimes the men's team lost, sometimes the women's team, sometimes both. In 1997-1998, the pain struck twice, when Den Bosch took both the men's and women's finals from the Amsterdammers.

Moreover, a double title would underline Amsterdam's overall class. For the women, it is already the 19th final appearance in 34 playoff editions; for the men - who took the title against Kampong last year - they are going for the 15th final appearance in 32 editions. Two titles in one year, however, would take the crop to the next level.

Incidentally, for the sake of completeness, we should mention the 1936-1937 and 1974-1975 seasons, in which both the Amsterdam men and women crowned themselves national champions. However, this was well before the introduction of the play-offs. HHIJC (in 1947-1948) and HGC (in 1989-1990) were also able to celebrate twice before the introduction of the play-offs.