Czech Extraliga launches its 90th season: ice hockey returns to fill the rinks
The Tipsport Extraliga, the top division of Czech ice hockey, drops the puck on its 2026/27 season this 15 September with Karlovy Vary against Třinec; the other twelve of the fourteen teams join the race a day later. The campaign carries real symbolic weight: the competition celebrates its 90th anniversary and starts with a new title sponsor, Red Bull.
The schedule allows no rest: 52 rounds of regular season running to 5 March 2027, a preliminary playoff round three days later, and a champion crowned no later than 30 April. Defending champions Dynamo Pardubice — who lifted their fourth title last season — will defend the crown in front of more than 10,000 fans at the Enteria arena.
Ninety seasons of elite hockey are also ninety years of real ice standing up to championship pressure. At Napapiri, manufacturers of real-ice rinks since 1993 — the very year today’s Czech Extraliga was born — we know what an arena that fills its stands night after night demands: a uniform, resilient, energy-efficient ice base. The engineering behind a champion is the same engineering behind a municipality’s first rink.
Photo: Roman Mifek, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.