The 2014–15 Champions Hockey League was the first season of the

Champions Hockey League The Champions Hockey League is a European first-level ice hockey tournament. Launched in the 2014–15 season by 26 clubs, 6 leagues and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the tournament features top teams across Europe. Backgrou ...

, a European

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

tournament launched by 26 founding clubs, six leagues and the

International Ice Hockey Federation The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; french: Fédération internationale de hockey sur glace; german: Internationale Eishockey-Föderation) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 83 ...

(IIHF). The regulation round began on 21 August 2014 and ended on 8 October 2014. The playoffs began on 4 November 2014 and ended with the Champions Hockey League Final on 3 February 2015.

Luleå HF Luleå Hockeyförening is an ice hockey club from Luleå, Sweden. The club has been playing in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), the top tier of ice hockey in Sweden, since the 1984–85 season. They are the northernmost team in the league and h ...

defeated Frölunda HC 4–2 to win the first edition of Champions Hockey League. On 9 December 2013, the IIHF officially announced that they had launched the Champions Hockey League tournament, starting in the 2014–15 season. The season's format was revealed on 20 December 2013, during the playoffs of the

2013 European Trophy The 2013 European Trophy was the fourth and final season of the European Trophy, an annually held European ice hockey tournament. It was also the eighth tournament since its predecessor, the ''Nordic Trophy'', was launched in 2006. The regulation ...

Team allocation

A total of 44 teams from eleven different

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an first-tier leagues participated in the 2014–15 Champions Hockey League. The teams were decided with regards to different licenses for the founding teams, leagues and wildcards.

Team license

The participating teams were decided with regards to different licenses for founding teams, league teams (from founding leagues) and other wildcard teams. * A license: The 26 founding teams all got an A license, since they play in the first-tier league of their respective domestic league system in the 2014–15 season. * B license: Two teams – the regular-season winner and the play-off champion in the 2013–14 season – from each of the founding leagues (the Austrian

EBEL Ebel is a Swiss luxury watch company that was founded in 1911 at La Chaux-de-Fonds in the canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. History Ebel was established in 1911 by Eugène Blum and his wife, Alice (née Lévy). The brand name originates from th ...

, the

Czech Extraliga The Czech Extraliga ( cs, Extraliga ledního hokeje, ELH) is the highest-level ice hockey league in the Czech Republic. It was created by the 1993 split of the Czechoslovak First Ice Hockey League following the breakup of Czechoslovakia. The le ...

, the Finnish

Liiga The SM-liiga (marketed as just Liiga from 2013 on), (Finnish for ''League'') colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It is one of the six founding lea ...

, the German

DEL Del, or nabla, is an operator used in mathematics (particularly in vector calculus) as a vector differential operator, usually represented by the nabla symbol ∇. When applied to a function defined on a one-dimensional domain, it denotes ...

, the Swedish SHL and the Swiss NLA) received a B licence to the tournament. If those teams had already received an A license, other teams from the league took the B license spots. The order the B licenses were handed out is: # National champion # Regular season winner # Runner-up, regular season # Play-off finalist # Best placed semifinal loser # Worst placed semifinal loser * C license: There were six wild cards, five for the champions of the

Slovak Extraliga The Tipos Extraliga (Slovak Extraliga) is the highest-level ice hockey league in Slovakia. From the 2018–19 season to the 2020–21 season, the league included one or two teams from Hungary. In 2009, it was ranked by the IIHF as the fifth st ...

(Slovakia),

GET-ligaen Eliteserien, known as Fjordkraftligaen due to sponsorship, is the premier Norwegian ice hockey league, organised by the Norwegian Ice Hockey Association. It comprises 10 clubs and works on the premise of promotion and relegation, in which the t ...

(Norway),

Elite Ice Hockey League The Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL), sometimes referred to as the British Elite League or, for sponsorship reasons, the Viaplay Elite League, is an ice hockey league in the United Kingdom. Formed in 2003 following the demise of the Ice Hockey ...

(United Kingdom),

Ligue Magnus The Ligue Magnus, currently known as Synerglace Ligue Magnus for sponsorship reasons, is the top men's division of the French ice hockey pyramid, established in 1906. The league operated under a variety of names before taking that of its champio ...

(France) and

Metal Ligaen Metal Ligaen is the premier league in Danish ice hockey. The league consists of 9 professional teams. The name of the league has changed many times, but is being sponsored by Dansk Metal and therefore got the name Metalligaen. History It is ...

(Denmark), as well as one for the regular season winner of GET-ligaen. The Elite Ice Hockey League champion

Belfast Giants The Belfast Giants (known officially as the Stena Line Belfast Giants due to sponsorship) are a professional ice hockey team based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They compete in the UK's Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) and are the current cha ...

were forced to turn down the chance due to lack of arena availability, giving place for the Challenge Cup winner

Nottingham Panthers The Nottingham Panthers are a British professional ice hockey club based in Nottingham, England. They are members of the Elite Ice Hockey League. Their main team sponsor is the Nottingham Building Society. The Nottingham Panthers have won four ...

Teams

A full list of the teams participating in the inaugural season and how they qualified was presented on 10 May 2014.

Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows.

Group stage

The group stage draw took place on 21 May 2014 in

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

, and the teams were assigned to eleven groups from A to K. The 44 teams were allocated into four pots based on their positions in their national leagues 2014, with the top seeded teams being placed in Pot 1 and the lower ranked teams in Pot 2, Pot 3 and the lowest ranked teams in Pot 4. They were drawn into eleven groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format, giving six games per team. In total, 132 games were played in the group stage. The schedule was released on 2 June 2014, with 30 of 44 teams playing their first game 21 August 2014, and the other teams playing their first game the following day. The match days were 21–22 August, 23–24 August, 4–5 September, 6–7 September, 23–24 September and 7–8 October 2014. All game times are local times. The 11 group winners and the five best ranked runners-up qualified for the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

. The five best runners-up were determined by ranking all runners-up based on their number of points and goal differential in their respective groups, explained more detailed in the detailed group stage article. ''See the detailed group stage page for tiebreakers if two or more teams are equal on points.''

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Group I

Group J

Group K

Ranking of second-placed teams

For tiebreakers if two or more teams are equal on points, see the detailed group stage page.

Playoffs

In the playoffs, the teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis with the team with the better standing after the

group stage A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...

having the second game at home, except for the one-match final played at the venue of the team with the best competition track record leading up to the final. The mechanism of the draw for playoffs are as follows: *The entire playoff was drawn at a single occasion on 10 October 2014 to determine the eight pairings for the Round of 16. After the draw, all matches up to the final are set in brackets. *In the draw for the Round of 16, the eight best group winners were seeded, and the three group winners with worst record and the five best runners-up were unseeded. The seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the second leg. Teams from the same group could not be drawn against each other.

Bracket

Note: #The teams listed on top of each tie play first match at home and the bottom team plays second match at home.

Round of 16

The draw for the entire playoff (Round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final) was held on 10 October 2014. The first legs were played on 4 November, and the second legs were played on 11 November 2014. ;Notes

Quarter-finals

The first legs were played on 2 December, and the second legs were played on 9 December 2014.

Semi-finals

The first legs were played on 13 January, and the second legs were played on 20 January 2015.

Final

The final was played on 3 February 2015 at the venue of the team with the best competition track record leading up to the final.

Statistics

Leading scorers

''Rankings based upon points, and sorted by goals.''

Leading goaltenders

''Goalkeepers with 40% or more of their team's total minutes, ranked by save percentage.''

Prize money

The 44 teams competed for a grand total of 1.5 million

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

s. However, the money distribution was not announced.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2014-15 Champions Hockey League 1 Champions Hockey League seasons