CHL to play with 48 teams in 2015–16

The Champions Hockey League has decided to change the playing format for the 2015–2016 season. The Champions Hockey League will expand the Group Stage from 44 to 48 teams, divided into 16 groups with three teams in each.

The two best teams from each group will advance to playoff round of 32 (1/16-final) where teams will play home-and-away knock-out games, leading up to the one-game final. 

In each group, teams will play two home and two away games. The total number of games will be 157. The total in the current 2014-2015 season is 161.

The breakdown of the 48 teams will be as follows:

• 26 founding A-License clubs (Finland, Sweden 6 clubs each, Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland 4 clubs each and Austria 2 clubs)
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• 12 B-license clubs (in principle champions and regular season winners) from the six founding leagues (AUT, CZE, FIN, GER, SWE, SUI)

• 10 C-license (“Wild Card”) teams from other European leagues to be determined later (of which one license may be assigned to the 2015 IIHF Continental Cup winner)

This format shortens the Group Stage to 96 games (from 132 games in 2014–15), but increases the Playoff Stage to five rounds (including the final) and 61 games (from 29 games in 2014–15), thus putting more weight on the excitement provided by the home-and-away knockout stages. 

“With this adjustment of our format, we want to make our league more attractive for the fans by starting the Playoff Stage sooner and creating more knock-out games and more one-game elimination match-ups,” said Champions Hockey League chairman Anders Ternbom.

This format change and expansion in number of teams is also the first step towards extending the invitation to and accommodating clubs from the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) in the future. In the spirit of the Champions Hockey League motto “Where Europe Comes to Play”, C-License invitations will be extended, primarily, to the CHL “Challenge Leagues” from Slovakia, France, Norway, Denmark and Great Britain.

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