The CHL Board has decided that due to uncertainties surrounding the current Covid19-pandemic, a tournament start in October is no longer feasible. Travel-restrictions also would prevent several match-ups from being completed. The new starting date is November 17th.
“Six more weeks of preparation time will allow us to continue working on solutions for critical match-ups and ideally, some of the restrictions will be lifted in the meantime,” CHL president Peter Zahner explained.
The later start will also force back-to-back games. In the rounds of 32 and 16 both games would be played within 24 hours in the same city. The higher ranked team generally should have home-ice advantage. An updated schedule has not yet been released.