The Champions Hockey League has completed its first season and now looks ahead to year two. At this point, league CEO Martin Baumann reflects on what went well, what could be improved, and what needs to be done to ensure the CHL's success in the future. 

by Derek O'Brien

One year ago, the Champions Hockey League was set to begin its first season of play and CEO Martin Baumann sat down to discuss the new competition and several issues surrounding it.

Among the topics were the challenges involved in getting different teams and leagues from different countries to work together, and what the league needed to do, both on and off the ice, to be successful long-term.

Now, after on year of play, Baumann was asked to reflect on the season and look ahead to year two and beyond.

First of all, how would you evaluate the Champions Hockey League's first season on the ice?

It was definitely a great experience. We enjoyed a fantastic final in Lulea and the fans there were brilliant. The semi-finals were also excellent. In the Finnish media they called the Karpat Oulu–Frolunda Gothenburg game there one of the best club hockey games ever in Finland, and that was a big compliment for our tournament and for club hockey in general.

Was there anything that was a disappointment?

Overall, it was different from one game to another. We were a bit disappointed spectator-wise during the Group Stage but it really became much better when we entered the playoffs.

What about television and other media exposure?

Sponsor-wise it was quite interesting what we achieved the first season. Our marketing partner sold basically all packages which were for sale. Television-wise, we absolutely have to increase those numbers for the second season, but that works together with drawing more fans. If we have more fans at the venues we will have more fans on TV as well.

On ice, what about the dominance of Swedish and Finnish teams – four Swedish teams and four Finnish teams in the quarter-finals. Is that something you'd like to see change?

Well it's hard to change. That's one of the things about sports – it's the teams that decide that. But yes, I'd like to see more teams from different countries entering the Playoff Stage, and I think the new format we have will contribute to that.

Of course there were also some teams from Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic who were very close to advancing to the quarters. Maybe it was just a bit of bad luck prevented it?

Yes, but as we were talking about sports, luck always plays a part in it too of course. One of the surprising things, though, was how well a couple of the Austrian teams did – Vienna and Salzburg both played very well and that was good for hockey too. In Switzerland, Geneve-Servette had a good run and made the playoffs but they lost a tough series against SaiPa.

What about some of the Wild-Card teams, such as Stavanger?

You know, teams like Stavanger we like a lot because those teams are highly committed to the CHL. I went to Norway and the Oilers were very much engaged and committed and it really showed, not only on ice but also at the gate. But even teams that did not enjoy so much on-ice success, such as the Nottingham Panthers, still drew lots of fans who really enjoyed the CHL and being part of Europe.

And of course there will be more Wild-Card teams coming in this year. What do you expect from them?

Well, we have two new teams from Great Britain, which I've heard have a lot of great fans, and from France – Grenoble and Gap – and then I look forward to meeting the team from Belarus – our Continental Cup winner, Neman Grodno.

Belarus is something new for the CHL. What do you expect there?

I'm looking forward to it, due to the fact that they won the Continental Cup and I'm quite confident that they will be successful in the Champions Hockey League as well. To be part of Europe means a lot to the Belarus ice hockey community. Spectator-wise they will mobilize a lot of fans to their games and that's exactly what we need.

After Belarus, of course the next thing everybody's going to ask about is Russia. What do you think about that possibility?

I'm positive.I am sure that Russian hockey teams will compete in Europe, just like Russian teams in all other sports compete in various Champions Leagues and European Cups. The competition would be better with Russian teams and at the same time Russian clubs cannot afford to isolate themselves. Isolation always leads to loss in quality.

We’ve met the KHL leadership, we tried to convince them that competing would be good for all. We are not there yet but maybe in a couple of months or years we'll know more. For the growth of club hockey in Europe, it’s important that all the major hockey powers contribute.

Are there any other places in Europe that you think could be part of the CHL?

It's step-by-step, I think. Poland is one that we believe has the potential. There are other teams from other countries that we are monitoring but it's too early to decide.

We went to Krakow for the IIHF Division 1-A Championship and there we met with the Polish Ice Hockey Association and we granted them a conditional Wild-Card for the 2016–17 Champions Hockey League season, and that’s pending visible progress in Polish club hockey. As our tagline says “Where Europe Comes to Play”, so we would really like to be able to invite more teams from different countries.

And at that 1-A tournament, the Polish national team nearly qualified for the top World Championship group.

Exactly! The whole event was very impressive – the fans there were fantastic and they really appreciated how well their team played. That's what we want – full arenas of committed fans and people who really like the sport. And there are some great new arenas being built in Poland.

Do you think that the level of the Polish league is high enough to compete in the CHL?

Not yet, but they've made progress in recent years and after our initial discussions they showed enormous commitment to speed up the development and especially a couple of clubs are eager. That's the reason it's conditional – if they're able to continue improving the quality of the league then we'll gladly invite them in.

The teams that actually did qualify at that tournament were Kazakhstan and Hungary. Do you feel they're anywhere near ready at the club level?

Well actually we nearly had teams from both Kazakhstan and Hungary qualify for the coming season. At the Continental Cup where Neman qualified, Yeltis Pavlodar from Kazakhstan were also among the final four teams. And of course Szekesfehervar play in the Austrian EBEL and they were in the quarter-finals. We have two spots for teams from that league to qualify for and, for a time, it looked like they had a chance at it.

Looking ahead to next year, there are some changes. Namely, increasing the number of teams and making the groups smaller.

First of all, we had to build up some space for the new clubs. We discussed it on our board and we decided to increase from 44 to 48 teams to create some more spots for Wild-Cards. We added another Wild-Card for Slovakia, Great Britain, Norway and France. The other change you mentioned is reducing the groups from four to three. That gives us the possibility to take two teams to the next round, so we added one more round of playoffs, which will help more teams and countries compete in the knock-out stage.

I suppose replacing two Group Stage games with two playoff games will create more interest.

Definitely. We simply took away the last two group-stage game days and turned them into playoffs. The challenge with game days five and six was that some teams were already eliminated and had no chance of advancing, so there wasn't much interest in them. By eliminating them, we scratch the games that aren't interesting to people in favour of ones that are – and that's the extra playoff games. With four games in the Group Stage and two out of three teams advancing, teams should mostly remain in contention for a playoff spot right until the last game.

Where do you want to be one year from now, looking ahead to year three?

That's difficult to say right now. First and foremost, I'm really highly motivated to enter the second season and I think the fact that we performed well gives us a boost. I think the clubs that maybe weren't sure how to approach European competition, realized how important it is really from day one to be ready and to go all-in.

Also, the fact that we had such an amazing final in Luleå motivates a lot of clubs, and that will bring more fans to the venues.

You can watch highlights from the Martin Baumann interview here.