With the Coronavirus still ongoing, the CHL Board has decided to delay the start of their season until October 6. There will also have no round-robin, the 32 qualified teams will start with a round-of-32 elimination bracket. Up to the semifinals, teams will face each other twice, once at home and once on the road. The final will still be a one-game event in February.
"Our participating teams must be able to travel, and our goal is that games will only be played with spectators in the arenas. For this reason, and because of the high degree of uncertainty across the continent, we have decided to be proactive and not to take the risk of requiring urgent changes closer to the original start date", the CHL's CEO Peter Zahner notes in regards to the virus.
"We have reviewed many different alternative scenarios in the last couple of weeks and came to the conclusion that a knock-out only competition is the most straightforward and fair solution we can offer”, he comments the format-changes.
