The playoff final qualification of Lausanne HC and the ZSC Lions has guaranteed the EVZ a place in next season’s Champions Hockey League. With the CHL title, the ZSC Lions secured Switzerland a fourth starting place for 2025/26, with the regular-season winner of the National League (Lausanne), the runner-up (Zurich), the third-placed team (Bern) and the Swiss champion also qualifying. As the two Lions will now fight it out between themselves, EVZ, as the fourth-placed team in the qualifiers, will inherit the last Swiss place in the tableau of the 24 best teams in Europe.
SEMI-FINAL IN THE 2022/23 SEASON
The last time Zug played in Europe was in the 2022/23 season. As Swiss champions, EVZ were among the favourites for the European Trophy at the time. With 17 points from six group games, they qualified for the Round of 16 with aplomb. As luck would have it, Red Bull Munich awaited them there – the previous year, EVZ lost to Bayern in the final game of the group stage and missed out on the playoffs. But the Zug team got their revenge on the Germans in the round of 16 with two 5:1 victories and advanced to the quarter-finals, where they secured their first semi-final ticket thanks to an overtime win in the second leg at home in the BOSSARD Arena.
Away from home in the Nokia Arena in Tampere, Finland, Head Coach Dan Tangnes’ team was unable to find a recipe against Tappara’s defensive bulwark. In mid-January 2023, EVZ entered its last game to date on the European stage with a 2-0 deficit: 160 seconds before the end of the third period, Zug was one goal short of forcing overtime – instead, Tappara Tampere scored two goals into the empty net.
The Finns went on to win the CHL title in the final against Lulea. It was only the second time that the European Trophy had not gone to a Swedish team – and the second time a winner from Finland had done so. The following year, Genève-Servette were crowned the first Swiss CHL winners, and this season the ZSC Lions repeated the success from a Swiss perspective.
DRAW & FORMAT
The draw for the regular season of the CHL will take place on Wednesday, May 21 in Stockholm. The EVZ will then find out which six opponents it will face from the end of August. Since the 2023/24 season, the first phase of the CHL is no longer played in groups, but in a single ranking with all 24 teams. Each team will face six different opponents, three at home and three away. The top 16 teams from the regular season qualify for the playoffs, where 1st will face 16th, 2nd 15th and so on.
