The Sheffield Steelers, the reigning British champions, won four out of six Champions Hockey League (CHL) games against strong opponents – announcing that Great Britain's Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) is becoming a force in European hockey.
The CHL’s regular season concluded on Wednesday night, with the final six playoff spots being secured on the final night.
Of the 16 remaining teams, four are from Switzerland, three each from Sweden and Germany, two each from Czechia and Finland, and one each from Austria and Great Britain.
The Steelers are the second team from Britain to make it this far – the first was the Nottingham Panthers in 2017-18. When the CHL was revived a decade ago, the participation of EIHL clubs was seen as a novelty by much of the hockey world. But today, that phenomenon parallels the improvement of the British national hockey team, which has competed in four of the past five top-level IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships.
“It’s come in leaps and bounds,” said Robert Dowd, who captains both the Steelers and the national team, at the Worlds in Prague last May. “The league at home is getting better and attracting more talent, which is raising the level of the homegrown talent pool, and that means only good things for the national team.”
In their last CHL regular-season game, the Steelers defeated powerhouse Dynamo Pardubice, who this off-season acquired IIHF Male Player of the Year Roman Cervenka. The Czech club also boasts the likes of Andrej Sustr, Lukas Sedlak, Libor Hajek, Martin Kaut, Lukas Radil, Jiri Smejkal and David Musil, who are familiar names from the NHL or the Czech national team.
Needing a win in this game to advance, Pardubice was desperate, firing 46 shots at Steelers netminder Matthew Greenfield. But the Sheffield squad, which also features British national team regular Cole Shudra – as well as Brandon Whistle, who has appeared with the team on occasion – managed to weather the storm.
The Steelers did more than survive, in fact. Despite the high volume of shots against, the Steelers had Pardubice under pressure at various points, including a sustained stretch late in the third period when they were going for the regulation victory. Ultimately, Sheffield prevailed 3-2 in a shootout, which eliminated Pardubice from this CHL competition.
“What a hockey game,” Sheffield head coach Aaron Fox said. “I thought our guys were ready to play from puck-drop again tonight. We’ve had quite the CHL campaign. I know that we had found out just before our game tonight that we had clinched. But we thought there was a pathway to make sure we were playing better hockey domestically, and tonight was a step in the right direction that way.”
The win over Pardubice was not an anomaly. The Steelers have also beaten Swedish powerhouses Skelleftea AIK and the Vaxjo Lakers as well as the famous Czech club Sparta Prague this year. Their two defeats have both been by one goal to Swiss teams Fribourg-Gotteron and ZSC Lions Zurich. While they’ve been outshot in most of the games, it hasn’t usually been by a decisive margin. They’ve been a challenging opponent for these European heavyweights.
“I think it’s shown a lot of people in Europe that the [British] league can play,” said Fox.
Elsewhere in the CHL
Pardubice was just edged out by Tappara Tampere, the three-time reigning champion in Finland who won the CHL in 2022-23. Tappara had lost earlier Wednesday 2-0 to Lausanne and had to rely on help from a couple of results to advance – including Sheffield's win.
Other available playoff spots on Wednesday were claimed by five-time reigning Czech champion Ocelari Trinec, three-time reigning German champion Eisbaren Berlin, and the Lahti Pelicans, who were finalists in Finland last year. Germany's Straubing Tigers were idle on Wednesday but made the playoffs based on favourable results.
The CHL almost had a playoff team from Poland for the first time this year. Unia Oswiecim won two of its first five CHL games this year, and another win on Wednesday would have seen them through. However, they ran up against a Trinec squad that meant business and fell 7-3.
Round-of-16 matchups
- (1) Farjestad Karlstad vs (16) Tappara Tampere
- (2) ZSC Lions Zurich vs (15) Straubing Tigers
- (3) Lausanne HC vs (14) Geneve-Servette
- (4) Ocelari Trinec vs (13) Sparta Prague
- (5) Fribourg-Gottéron vs (12) Vaxjo Lakers
- (6) Skelleftea AIK vs (11) Pinguins Bremerhaven
- (7) Eisbaren Berlin vs (10) Sheffield Steelers
- (8) Red Bull Salzburg vs (9) Lahti Pelicans
Of note is an apparent heavyweight clash between top-seeded Farjestad, which took 17 of 18 available points in the regular season, and Tappara. There are also a couple of intra-league matchups, including Lausanne vs Geneve from Switzerland’s National League and Trinec vs Sparta from the Czech Extraliga.
As for the Steelers, their next opponent, Eisbaren Berlin, features a familiar face in Liam Kirk, a Sheffield product who has become the face of British hockey. Kirk famously led the 2021 Worlds in Riga with seven goals and was named a tournament all-star.
The CHL's round of 16 will be played in November in the form of two-game home-and-away series with the winners on aggregate scores advancing. Beyond that, the quarter-finals will be played in December and the semi-finals in January. The one-game final is scheduled for 18 February.