The Champions Hockey League, Europe’s new premium club competition, will start in August and will crown the continent’s club champion in Feb. '15.
Apart from the reigning national champions and the regular season winners from each of the six founding leagues, 26 founding clubs representing the top historic brands and most successful teams of their respective countries in the past and today will compete for the European Trophy. After a projected 149-game Champions Hockey League schedule, the winner will be hoisting the cup, named after the competition the new CHL emerged from. The Champions Hockey League is a joint project between Europe’s professional clubs, their national leagues and the Int'l Ice Hockey Federation. The list of the founding leagues and its founding clubs of the Champions Hockey League:
- Austria (EBEL): EC Red Bull Salzburg, UPC Vienna Capitals.
- Czech Republic (Tipsport Extraliga): HC Bili Tygri Liberec, HC Pardubice, HC Sparta Prague, HC Vitkovice Ostrava.
- Finland (Liiga): IFK Helsinki, JYP Jyväskylä, KalPa Kuopio, Kärpät Oulu, Tappara Tampere, TPS Turku.
- Germany (DEL): Adler Mannheim, Eisbären Berlin, ERC Ingolstadt, Krefeld Pinguine.
- Switzerland (NLA): SC Bern, Fribourg-Gottéron, ZSC Lions Zurich, EV Zug.
- Sweden (SHL): Djurgården Stockholm (currently playing in second-tier Allsvenskan), Frölunda Gothenburg, Färjestad Karlstad, HV71 Jönköping, Linköpings HC, Luleå Hockey (IIHF).
NO KHL: R-SPORT reported the new European Champions League competition's roster of clubs "has some major absentees -- the teams from the continent's biggest league, the KHL." There "will be no representation for the KHL, which boasts 28 team from eight countries and is widely seen as the world’s second strongest league" behind North America’s NHL. Russian teams "have traditionally dominated European hockey competitions." IIHF President René Fasel said, "We had some discussions with the KHL. They didn’t want to join because of different reasons." He added that "one major stumbling block was the issue of Jokerit, a Finnish club that will join the KHL next season in the face of heated opposition from the Finnish league" (
R-SPORT, 12/9).
