The reporter learned from the press conference on the 28th that the 2025-2026 season of the Chinese Women's Ice Hockey Professional League will open on September 7th in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia. There will be five teams and 162 athletes participating in the competition, which will last until March 7th, 2026. It is reported that this season's league will continue to adopt a tournament system, divided into two stages: regular season and finals, and will consist of 38 matches. Among them, the three regular season games will be held in Hulunbuir, Qiqihar, and Tangshan respectively, using a single round robin format, with 10 games arranged for each station. After the regular season, the top four teams in total points will advance to the finals held at Harbin Sports Institute. Wang Xuan, Chairman of the China Ice Hockey Association, introduced that compared with the past two leagues, this league has optimized and adjusted the size of the participating teams, reducing the number from seven to five. The strength of each team is more balanced, and the intensity and quality of the matches will be significantly improved, making the matches more suspenseful. In addition, the league continues the foreign aid mechanism, and each team can sign up to five foreign athletes (excluding goalkeepers) to participate, providing opportunities for local young players to compete on the same field as international high-level players. Li Yutian, the head of the competition department of the Chinese Ice Hockey Association, said, "Chinese women's ice hockey is in a stage of transition between the old and the new, and it is regrettable that they did not make it to the Milan Winter Olympics. However, with a focus on long-term goals such as the 2030 Winter Olympics, we must persist in running the domestic league well, cultivating reserve talents, and promoting the growth of all teams, especially young teams