Next season's Champions Hockey League will include 32 teams, and now this year's Final is in the books we know a bit more about the make-up of the 2017-18 season.
Of the 32 teams that will compete in next year's CHL, 24 will come from the six founding leagues and eight will come from challenger leagues. The number of teams per founding league is dependent on how they've performed in the CHL so far (more here). With the 2016-17 season now taken care of, and the rankings finalized, this is how many teams will come from the founding leagues next season:
Sweden – 5 teams*
Finland – 5 teams
Switzerland – 4 Teams
Czech Republic – 4 Teams
Germany – 3 Teams
Austria – 3 Teams
(* already includes Frolunda Gothenburg as 2016-17 CHL champions)
The qualification for these places is set out in the rules as follows:
National league champion (play-off winners)
Regular season winners
Regular season runner up
Losing play-off finalist
Higher regular season ranked losing semi-finalist
Lower regular season ranked losing semi-finalist
Third placed team in regular season
Fourth placed team in regular season
Fifth placed team in regular season.
These 24 teams will be joined by a further eight from the challenger leagues – including the national champions of Slovakia, Norway, France, Belarus, Denmark and the IIHF Continental Cup champion Nottingham Panthers. Read more about the new format here.