Champions Hockey League

Background

The IIHF launched a tournament with the same name in 2008 to coincide with the IIHF's 100th anniversary. The tournament's only season was played between 8 October 2008 and 28 January 2009, and was won by the ZSC Lions who got to play in the 2009 Victoria Cup game as a result. The IIHF planned to launch another season, but was ultimately forced to cancel the tournament due to problems with finding sponsors and failure to agree on a format. On 9 December 2013, the IIHF officially announced that they had launched a new tournament with the same name, born out of the European Trophy, starting in the 2014–15 season.

2014–15 season

The 2014–15 season was played between August 2014 and February 2015. 44 clubs from 12 different European countries participated in the season, divided into 11 groups of four teams each. Each team played a double round-robin in their group, for a total of 6 games per team. The 11 group winners as well as the top five group runners-up qualified for the playoffs. The playoffs were as a single-elimination tournament, with all rounds leading to the final played in two-game, home-and-away, total-goal series. The final was a single game. In total, 161 games were played, including the group and playoff stages. The season was won by Luleå HF which defeated Frölunda HC in the final.

2015–16 season

For the 2015–16 season, the tournament has been expanded to 48 teams, divided into 16 groups with three teams in each group. The two first teams in each group advanced to the playoff round of 32. The 48 teams consisted of the 26 founding A-licence clubs, 12 B-licensed clubs from the founding leagues, and 10 C-licensed "Wild card" teams from other leagues. In total, 157 games were played. Frölunda HC won their first Champions League title by beating Oulun Kärpät in the final.

2016–17 season

The 2016–17 season was once more played with 48 teams, using the same format as in the previous season. The season started on 16 August 2016 and ended with the final game on 7 February 2017 with Frölunda defeating Sparta Prague, 4–3 in overtime.

2017–18 season

Starting with the fourth CHL season, the championship will be reduced to 32 teams, and qualification will be on sporting merits only. The six founding leagues will be represented by between three and five teams (based on a three-year league ranking), while eight teams from the "challenge leagues" will be represented by one team each. No founding team will automatically be qualified.

Teams

Starting in the 2017–18 season, the number of teams will be reduced from 48 to 32, with 24 of the entries coming from the six founding leagues (Swedish Hockey League, Finnish Liiga, Swiss National League A, Czech Extraliga, German DEL and Austrian/international EBEL) and all berths will be earned through on-ice achievement: the "founding clubs" will no longer be guaranteed a place in the competition. A maximum of five teams from each country are permitted, with the entries allotted to each country according to a coefficient system (best two leagues get five berths, next two get four, last two get three). The remaining eight places will be given to the champions of the Norwegian, Slovakian, French, Belarusian, Danish, British and Polish leagues, as well as the champion of the Continental Cup. The teams will then be drawn into eight groups of four, with the top two teams in each group advancing to the knockout stage, which will be contested as two-legged ties until a one-match final.

In the first 3 years of the competition, the 26 founding teams had guaranteed spots in the group stage ("A license"). Additional teams from the founding league, that qualified based on sporting merits ("B license") and the champions from other European leagues ("C license") completed the field.

League ranking

^F founding leagues
^TH as Frölunda HC qualified as titleholder, four best teams from SHL, beside Frölunda, will qualify as maximum number of teams from one league is five
^CC Nottingham Panthers of EIHL qualified as 2016-17 IIHF Continental Cup champion; it is unknown will there be more EIHL teams

League ranking points calculation

Each match is counted for league ranking points. Points collected by all teams from a specific league are summed up and then divided by number of teams from that league. The final result represents the league's coefficient for that year. Coefficients are then sorted from highest to lowest: the best league gets 100 points with each following getting five points less than previous one (95, 90, 85...).

Points are awarded as follows:

Additionaly, each team is awarded 1 point for reaching each of next rounds.

The last three seasons are taken into account for berth allocation for the 2017-18 season. League points are made of 33% of points won in first season, 67% of points won in second season and 100% of points won in last, third season.

For the 2018-19 season, each of the four previous seasons will be taken into account.

Prize money

In the 2014–15 season, 40 teams competed for a grand total of 1.5 million euros.

European Trophy

The winner of the Competition will receive the “European Trophy”.