The European-based Champions Hockey League (CHL) is back for its eighth season and started just a couple days ago on September 1st. If you’re a hockey fan that hasn’t lived in Europe, you probably have no idea what it is. The CHL commenced in August of 2014 with 44 club teams from 12 European nations taking part in the inaugural season. The 44 teams were broken down into 11 groups for a round-robin six-game home-and-away, with each of the group winners and the five best runner-ups competing in the 16 team playoffs. Eventually the Swedish team Luleå HF won the first European Trophy of the newly formed competition.
Skip ahead seven seasons to the 2022-2023 competition and the format and amount of teams allowed to participate has slightly changed. Now only 32 club teams from around Europe compete, with qualification being based on merit. Teams earn their way into the league by outstanding performance in their home league. There is a mathematical format that goes into the teams that can make it in and stay within the league, including the teams performance in the last four years of CHL competition. The pool selection process is conducted by lottery, and aired, to determine the teams that will compete in each pool – but two teams from the same league cannot compete in the same pool prior to playoff competition and therefore teams will be redirected through subsequent pools during the lottery process. There is also a maximum of five teams allowed per country, and the reigning CHL Champion earns an automatic berth into the following season’s competition, and this counts towards their country’s maximum of five teams allowable.
To those unfamiliar to the league and processes, it may seem like a lot, but all of this occurs – and is scheduled around – each of the European hockey league’s regular season schedules so as to not interfere with individual leagues. Individual round-robin pool competition includes a total of 125 games played over 13 game-days between September 2022 and March 2023. To accomplish this for the 22-23 season, the teams will play in eight groups of four, for a total of six games, one home, one away versus each team in their pool. The top two teams in each group advance to the Round of 16.
Once in the playoffs, with the exception of the Final, all match-ups are played in a two-game, home-and-away aggregate scoring series format. This means the total goals over two games determines which team advances – therefore overtime matches are only necessary if after two games the aggregate score is tied. If this occurs there is a 10-minute sudden-death followed by a shootout. All of this action can be caught on the Champions Hockey League website or their YouTube page. There are also CHL educational videos available on their website that explain so much more…and if you made it to this point of the article, you’d probably be interested in learning more! LEARN MORE HERE
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Author: CD, Host, Pigeonhole Hockey Podcast
