ZURICH – The IIHF, together with the marketing agency Ovation Sports, unveiled the new branding concept, including the logo, for the Champions Hockey League.

The new logo for Europe’s prime club competition, which will start on October 8, offers a stylish mix of hockey’s main elements. The most prominent part of the trade mark has the shape of a hockey puck, where two hockey stick blades meet.

In the middle of the puck, the rink’s centre ice area is shown – with the centre circle and the centre line – depicted. The words “Champions Hockey League” are integrated with a heavy emphasis on the word ‘Champion’.

European hockey fans have been waiting for a club competition to crown the European champion. The aura around the new logo symbolizes the energy that is created by this new competition.

“It has all the best qualities of a good logo,” says IIHF President René Fasel. “It’s simple, it gives you an immediate association to what you want to communicate and it conveys a touch of class.”

“It was a long process with many tweaks here and there, but when we finally got this one in our hands, we knew that this was our logo,” says Craig Thompson, the CEO of Ovation Sports, the marketing agency for the Champions Hockey League and the Victoria Cup.

Ovation submitted tenders to several agencies and finally decided to go with a London, England, based branding agency.

The logo was introduced to the eleven clubs who are qualified for the group stage and to the three qualifying clubs at a Champions Hockey League Club Workshop in Zurich on Wednesday and logo was enthusiastically received.

“It will develop into a full branding concept where the logo will be accompanied by an intro sequence designed for television and there will also be specially composed Champions Hockey League music tune,” says Thompson.

The Champions Hockey League will in its inaugural season be played between October 8 and January 28. The qualifying tournament with Sinupret Ice Tigers (Nuremberg, GER), SC Bern (SUI) and HC Kosice (SVK) will be played on September 12-14 in Nuremberg.

The winning team will be slotted into Champions Hockey League, Group B together with HV71 Jonkoping (SWE) and Espoo Blues (FIN).