Unlike last two years where the league had two tiers with five teams each, the third edition of the PHL will have the top seven teams from the last years's edition battiling for the country's top Hockey team.The team have been chosen on the basis of their perfomance in last years PHL - namely, Sher-e-Jalandhar, Chandigarh Dynamos,Maratha Warriors, Banglore Lions and Hyderabad Sultans,the top two teams from Tier ||,that is,Orissa Steelers and Chennai Veerans will be playing in the Preimier division.
The Premier division will have the seven teams play each other twice, in 42 matches, followed by a best of 3 play-off final between the top two teams in the league like last year. The total number of matches in all will be 45 and will span a period of two months.
This edition of PHL will also see it move to a multi venue format with Chennai to play host for the PHL for the first month, followed by Chandigarh in the second. All matches will under lights as before and be covered LIVE and and exclusive by ESPN STAR Sports.