Fans from all over Europe will be seeing teams from different leagues this upcoming season in the Champions Hockey League. We want to give you the opportunity to know a little about these leagues. Today, we have for you the Czech Extraliga, a league that only began in 1993/94. However, all of its teams are rooted in the Czechoslovakian federal league, and even earlier in some cases, so we have some of that background for you as well.

by Derek O'Brien

Like many European nations, Czech ice hockey has its origins in a similar ice sport called bandy. In the early 20th century, however, “Canadian-style” hockey started becoming more popular, bandy clubs started converting to ice hockey clubs, and Bohemia became a charter member of the International Ice Hockey Association in 1908.

The federal league is formed

The popularity of the sport grew after World War I in the newly-formed Czechoslovakia as clubs battled for a national championship and eventually, in 1936, a structured national league was formed. It began with eight clubs, seven of which were Czech — three clubs from Prague, LTC, Sparta and Slavia, as well as clubs from České Budějovice, Vítkovice, Opava and Mladá Boleslav — and Poprad in Slovakia.

LTC Prague was the most dominant early club, winning 14 out of 15 championships crowned between 1931 and 1949. Their first big star was Josef Malaček, followed by Vladimír Zábrodský, who led the league in goals six times. LTC was successful internationally, as well, winning the Spengler Cup seven times. LTC met its sudden demise in 1950, however, when several of the club's best players, including goaltender Bohumil Modrý, and other members of the national team, such as reigning scoring champion Augustin Bubník, were arrested and jailed on charges of espionage and treason. The repercussions were huge for Czechoslovakian hockey, both on the national team and in the domestic league.

In the power vacuum created by LTC's disappearance, several teams won the next few titles before Red Star Brno, forerunner to today's Kometa club, won 11 out of 12 years from 1955 to 1966. Brno also won three straight European Cups from 1966 to '68, the last coming with a win over Dukla Jihlava in an all-Czech final. Brno won the first game 3-0 at home, and a 3-3 tie in Jihlava in the second game was enough to give them the win. By this time, the Jihlava club was in the middle of their own run of dominance with seven domestic titles between 1967 and 1974. Chomutov's Miroslav Kluc was the big scorer of the '50s, winning four scoring titles between 1952 and 1956. Later, Slovan Bratislava's Václav Nedomanský won four as well, the first in 1967 and last in 1974, when he defected to play in North America.

Among the world's best

Despite the flight of Nedomanský, the quality of the Czechoslovakian league rose to one of the best in the world. While Soviet club CSKA Moscow dominated the European Cup, Czechoslovakian clubs regularly made it to the final, and Kladno finally won it in 1977, beating Spartak Moscow in a shootout in the final. In the 1977/78 season, Kladno and Pardubice travelled to North America and played four exhibition games each against NHL teams. Kladno compared well with the NHLers, winning twice, losing once and tying once, while Pardubice won once and lost three, including a 5-4 defeat to Nedomanský's Detroit Red Wings.

Kladno won the championship four times in a row from 1975 to 1978 and again in 1980. Their star player was Milan Nový, who won six scoring titles from 1976 to 1982 and eventually retired with a league record 470 goals. Nový finally went to the NHL's Washington Capitals in 1982, a year after Litvínov's Ivan Hlinka and Jiří Bubla went to Vancouver, and on the heels of the defections of the Šťastný brothers, Marián, Peter and Anton of Slovan Bratislava, to Quebec.

Dukla Jihlava again dominated the early '80s with four straight titles, and Litvínov's Vladimír Růžička won three scoring titles. Pardubice added to their two titles in the '70s with two more in the '80s, thanks to young goaltender Dominik Hašek. In 1985/86, the regular season was reduced from 44 to 36 games and a playoff system was introduced for the first time to make things more interesting for the fans. As the decade wore on, though, more and more players headed abroad, both legally and illegally. After the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989, the floodgates opened.

The Czech Extraliga

Sparta Prague won the last Czechoslovakian championship in 1993, and then the league split in two, following the split of the country at the start of the calendar year. The 1993/94 season was the first of the new Czech Extraliga. HC Olomouc won the first title before a club from the town of Vsetín began an unlikely run of five in a row from 1995 to 1999, then a sixth in 2001. Jiří Dopita was their big scorer and Roman Čechmánek was their star goalie. The club's meteoric rise to prominence fell just as quickly, though, and by 2007 they were relegated.

The last decade of the Czech Extraliga has been marked by parity, with Sparta in 2006 and 2007 being the only team able to win back-to-back titles. While most Czech stars now play in the NHL, there have been occasions of homecomings, such as the 2004/05 NHL lockout, when Jaromír Jágr suited up for hometown Kladno and Aleš Hemský and Milan Hejduk helped Pardubice to the title. Eight years later, another lockout, only half a season this time, provided another occasion to see the stars at home again. Jágr, now the owner of the Kladno club, came home to play once again, bringing players like Tomáš Plekanec and Marek Židlický with him. Tickets were in such high demand that Kladno moved three home games to Prague's O2 Arena – all drew more than 15 000 fans and one game against Kometa Brno drew a league record 17 182.

Other players come home to heroes' welcomes after lengthy NHL careers. After winning two Stanley Cups and numerous individual honours, Hašek came back to Pardubice for the 2009/10 season and backstopped the team to another title at the age of 45. After defecting to Canada at age 16, Petr Nedvěd played the last six years of his career in his hometown of Liberec, winning the league scoring title in 2012 at the age of 40. The 2013 Finals featured a pair of hometown heroes in Zlín's Petr Čajánek and Plzeň's Martin Straka, who was also the club's owner and general manager. In a thrilling seven-game series, it was Straka who scored the dramatic Cup-winning goal in triple overtime, bringing Plzeň its first-ever title. Čajánek's Zlín squad redeemed themselves in 2014, however, beating Brno to win their second title.

It's not just a league for old players, though. Two years after winning the Rookie-of-the-Year award in 2012, Slavia Prague's Tomáš Hertl made quite a splash when he jumped to the NHL this past season, showing that the league is good training ground for up-and-coming stars. Czech fans are now excited to see what another young rookie, Sparta's Martin Réway, is going to do in the Czech Extraliga this upcoming season.

Clubs in the 2014/15 Czech Extraliga season

CHL clubs in bold. "Top league" includes Czech or Czechoslovakian.

2013/14 leading scorers

Czech Extraliga, year-by-year