-
The first season of the Champions Hockey League was in 2014/15, featuring 44 teams from 11 countries.
-
Frölunda HC is the most successful club in the CHL, following a streak of four wins in five years.
-
A feature of a new partnership with Infront, the CHL prize money is now £2.95 million.
The Champions Hockey League is Europe’s premier inter-nation ice hockey competition, welcoming the best clubs from the continent’s top-tier leagues to compete for the European crown.
Similarly to the UEFA Champions League in its aim and its new fixtures format, the CHL aims to be the continent’s top competition and name the best team of it every year.
Here’s a look at the history of the relatively young European ice hockey competition, its winners, and some other CHL factoids.
History
The Champions Hockey League held its first faceoff on 21 August 2014, but it has its roots in the old Nordic Trophy and its later expanded form, the European Trophy.
In August 2006, four Swedish and four Finnish clubs commenced a seven-game round-robin tournament, with the top two going to a single-game final. Färjestad Karlstad were crowned as the first Nordic Trophy champions.
The league expanded in the following years, even holding separate tournaments in Sweden and Finland, until 2010, when other nations were brought into the fold.
It was in 2010 that the tournament would expand to 18 teams, drawing in clubs from Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Austria to battle the Finnish and Swedish clubs in the first European Trophy.
The competition continued to grow over the following years, reaching 32 teams in 2012 before the 2013 edition was confirmed as the last time the European Trophy would be the name of the competition.
In 2014, the Champions Hockey League staged quite the tournament. With 26 founding teams, two more teams from each of the founding nation leagues, and six wild card teams made for a 44-team CHL slate.
Among them, the Nottingham Panthers became the first representative of the EIHL in the CHL, but the first crown would go to a Swedish team, Luleå HF.
The CHL would expand to 48 teams for the next two editions but settled on 32 through to the 2023/24 season, when the competition was refined to its new 24-team format.
Winners
Through nine instalments of the Champions Hockey League, six have been won by Swedish teams, two have gone to Finnish clubs, and last season (2023/24), a Swiss team took the title for the first time.
This is the CHL winners’ list, with the 2024/25 season now underway.
-
2014/15: Luleå HF (Sweden)
-
2015/16: Frölunda HC (Sweden)
-
2016/17: Frölunda HC (Sweden)
-
2017/18: JYP (Finland)
-
2018/19: Frölunda HC (Sweden)
-
2019/20: Frölunda HC (Sweden)
-
2021/22: Rögle BK (Sweden)
-
2022/23: Tappara (Finland)
-
2023/24: Genève-Servette HC (Switzerland)
With such a strong track record in the competition, top seeding, and being a strong feeder of talent to the NHL, it’s not a surprise that for the 2024/25 season, the top three ice hockey betting favourites for the CHL hail from the SHL.
Why Aren’t KHL Clubs in the CHL?
In the founding of the CHL, the runners of the competition tried to get the KHL to be a part of the new continental tournament, but they were declined.
The chief executive of the CHL has often cited frustration at trying to get the Kontinental Hockey League into the competition as the KHL boasts so many strong teams.
However, much of the dismissal from the KHL has been because of its aim to compete with the NHL as the top league in the world.
So – the theory goes – they don’t want to get bundled into the bracket of the rest of the European teams, which are largely seen as feeder clubs by the North American giant.
Of course, if the KHL teams were in the CHL prior to the pandemic, they wouldn’t be anymore. In 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine, the board stopped inviting Belarusian teams to the CHL – so Russian clubs would certainly be banned, too.
CHL Format
The CHL has adopted the new continental sports format akin to that of the UEFA Champions League.
Now, all 24 teams feature in one league table, playing home and away against six different teams to earn passage to the Round of 16.
From there, it enters the Playoff Round. Starting 12 November 2024, teams play two legs against the team they’re drawn against, boiling down to a Final on 18 February 2025.
The teams competing are the top three clubs from the highest league in Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, Germany, Finland, and Sweden based on their standings and national title wins from the season before.
Then, five other leagues are invited to send their national champions to challenge, with those national leagues being in the UK, Poland, Norway, France, and Denmark – but those chosen Challenger Leagues can change each year.
Sheffield has revelled in this format, storming out to three straight wins, one of which was against the SHL champions. Still, the Steelers remain fairly long shots at 25/1 in the CHL outright betting.
CHL All-Time Top Scorer
Ryan Lasch remains the highest-scoring skater in CHL history for goals, assists, and points. The American forward has enjoyed very successful spells with TPS, Frölunda HC, SC Bern, the ZSC Lions, and the Lahti Pelicans.
To date, Lasch boasts 43 goals and 95 assists for 138 points in the CHL – each of which is an all-time stats leading figure.
For each stats line (goals, assists, and points), the next closest to Lasch is his former teammate and captain of Frölunda HC, Joel Lundqvist. The now-retired former NHLer notched 30 goals and 39 assists for 69 points.
The three-time CHL champion is competing in the European tournament this season with the Pelicans, so he’ll only increase his lead atop the all-time scoring charts.
CHL Prize Money
There is now £2.95 million (€3.5 million) up for grabs as CHL prize money following a lucrative expanded partnership with Infront, which runs through to the 2027/28 season.
Although the newest contract terms were signed in 2019, it wasn’t until 2023/24 that the new increase to CHL prize money came into effect.
It’s this deal that allowed the league to more than double its prize money. Initially, from the 2014/15 season, there was £1.2 million (€1.4 million) set as the prize money for the CHL.
*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
