Bloemendaal and Rotterdam look to hit full flow

The Hoofdklasse gets under way this weekend with EHL KO16 Men sides Rotterdam and Bloemendaal looking to get into full flow as quickly as possible.

For Bloemendaal, they will play newly promoted Nijmegen on home turf with some big names moving on with Dutch captain Thierry Brinkman now at Den Bosch while Arthur van Doren has gone to Braxgata.

Coming in, Nathan Ephraums joins from Melbourne, Yannick van der Drift returns from Real Club de Polo while Lucas Veen and Jan van ’t Land switching from relegated HGC.

They meet Nijmegen on Sunday and will need to keep tabs on the likes of Jake Whetton and Luca Brown from Australia.

Their EHL challenge in October sees them come up against Polo in the KO16.

Rotterdam, meanwhile, are up against hdm with Marc Recasens moving from Spain while Harry Martin and Mahinder Terlouw have gone to Hurley. Their EHL campaign begins with a game against TJ Plzeň Litice in October.

Those Hoofdklasse games take place on Sunday afternoon while the season opens on Saturday afternoon with SCHC’s raising the curtain on the women’s season with a trip to Oranje-Rood.

They have strengthened with striker Jip Dicke adding to their forward options while Olympic gold medalist Marleen Jochems is another marquee arrival.

Belgian international Elodie Picard will don the goalkeeping pads this season. On the flip side, Ginella Zerbo and Laurien Leurink have both retired from top hockey while Kyra Fortuin has moved to nearby Kampong.

Den Bosch is the other EHL FINAL12 team this season and they have a settled panel with Lieve Wijckmans the one addition from their club’s youth section while Pleun van der Plas has stopped playing and Amber Brouwer switches to Oranje-Rood.

Their first game is against hdm on Sunday.

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