2025–26 Champions Hockey League

The 2025–26 Champions Hockey League will be the 11th season of the Champions Hockey League, a European ice hockey tournament. The tournament will be competed by 24 teams, with qualification being on sporting merits only. Apart from the reigning champion, the six founding leagues will be represented by three teams each, while five "challenge leagues" will be represented by one team each.

Swiss team ZSC Lions are the title holders having won their first Champions Hockey League title, defeating Swedish team Färjestad BK 2–1 in the 2025 final.^[2]

A total of 24 teams from different European first-tier leagues are scheduled to participate in the league. Besides the title holders ZSC Lions, 18 teams from the six founding leagues, as well as the national champions from Denmark, France, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom will participate.^[3][4]

The qualification criteria for national leagues is based on the following rules:^[5]

1. CHL champions
2. National league champions (play-off winners)
3. Regular season winners
4. Regular season runners-up
5. Regular season third-placed team

Note: the national league champions of the United Kingdom are distinct from the national champions, who are determined in play-offs following the regular season.^[6]

The schedule of the competition is as follows.^[1][7]

In the regular season the 24 teams are combined into one table. Each team will play home and away against six different opponents once. The best sixteen teams will qualify to the round of 16.

The draw of the regular season took place on 21 May 2025 in Stockholm, Sweden.^[7]

The participating teams were seeded into Pots A to D according to their achievements in their national leagues and their respective league’s standing in the CHL league ranking. The reigning CHL champions ZSC Lions were the top seeded team and therefore given a place in pot A. The top pot also contained the reigning champions of four of the top five founding leagues according to the league rankings (Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic and Finland), as well as the 2024–25 NL regular season winners Lausanne HC. Pot D contained 2024–25 ICE Hockey League regular season third-placed HC Bolzano and champions of five challenger leagues.^[8]

Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win in regulation time, 2 points for a win in overtime, 1 point for a loss in overtime, 0 points for a loss in regulation time). If two or more teams were tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria is applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (see 8.4.4. Tie breaking formula group stage standings):^[9]

1. Greater number of wins in regulation time (3 point wins);
2. Greater number of wins in total (regulation time wins + overtime and shootout wins);
3. Better goal difference;
4. More goals scored;
5. More away goals scored;
6. The higher position in the CHL Draw pot allocation.

In the playoffs, pairings will be formed based on the positions of the teams in the regular season as follows: the team finished 1st in the regular season faced the team finished 16th, the team finished 2nd faced the team finished 15th, and so on. There will be no play-off draw or any reseedings for the quarter-finals and semi-finals. In each round except the final, the teams play two games and the aggregate score decides which team advances. The first leg is hosted by the team with the lower seed with the second leg being played on the home ice of the other team. If aggregate score is tied, a sudden death overtime follows. If the overtime is scoreless, the team who wins the shoot out competition advances.

The final will be played on the home ice of the team with the higher accumulative ranking across the entire campaign, including play-off games.

The first legs will be played on 11 and 12 November with return legs played on 18 and 19 November 2025.

The first legs will be played on 2 and 3 December with return legs played on 16 December 2025.

The first legs will be played on 13 and 14 January with return legs played on 20 and 21 January 2026.