This season's Champions Hockey League Final will take place on Tuesday 4 February in Hradec Králové, the home of Mountfield HK, with the opening faceoff at 18:45 CET. They will face defending champions, three-time winners, and fifth-time finalists Frölunda Indians.
The 2020 Champions Hockey League Final will be special for both teams involved as they get a chance to go for the European Trophy in the final games of the 2019/20 season.
It will also be special for Mountfield HK. Not only is this their first CHL final, but they won the right to host it at home in front of their own fans - the first Czech team to play for the prize on their own ice.
Built in 1957, the ČPP Arena has been used for hockey in Hradec Králové since its inception. For the first 12 years of its existence, the arena was actually completely outside with no roof added until 1969 when a large reconstruction began. While it's known that this development work lasted some seven years, a less known fact is that the team continued to play games in the building while construction work was going on!
In 2007 the arena was completely overhauled to make it suitable for hockey in the modern era: VIP sections, Skyboxes and new locker rooms were all added to bring it up to today's standard. A quirk of the building itself is that, to this day, it still only has one entrance on and off the ice for skaters.
Extraliga hockey arrived in Hradec Králové in 2013 with Mountfield HK playing out of the ČPP Arena in the country's highest level of competition, while in 2017 the arena saw its first taste of the Champions Hockey League.
A multi-purpose arena, it has also hosted the 1980 European Junior Championships, 2000 World Inline Hockey Championships, the 2002 IIHF World Junior Championships and the 2017 European Basketball Women's Championships.
6890 fans can be packed into the arena, and interestingly just over half (3750) is seated - the other 3140 create one of the best atmospheres in the Czech Republic in the standing section!