The 2018–19 Women's Hockey Series was the inaugural season of the Hockey Series, a field hockey championship for women's national teams. The tournament started in June 2018 and finished in June 2019.[1]
Format
The Hockey Series was open to national teams that were not playing in the Pro League.
The Hockey Series took place in two rounds, the Open and the Finals. The nine highest-ranked teams in the FIH World Rankings (as of 9 June 2017) skipped the Open and advanced directly to the Finals. All other national teams played in the Hockey Series Open, which features six regional events with up to six teams each. Fifteen teams qualified from the Hockey Series Open to the Hockey Series Finals, for a total of 24 teams in the Finals. Those teams played in three events, with eight teams per event (three automatic qualifiers and five that advanced from the Open).[2]
The top two placed teams in each of the Finals events qualified for the 2019 FIH Olympic Qualifiers.[3] In this qualification event, they were joined by the top four placed teams from the Pro League, and the two highest ranked teams not already qualified. The teams were drawn and played a two-legged tie to determine six qualified nations for the Olympic Games.
