Nottingham Panthers are the 2026 IIHF Continental Cup champions, defeating Torpedo Ust-Kamenogorsk in Saturday’s gold medal game. It finished 4-2, with Torpedo scoring twice in the last 90 seconds to threaten a dramatic comeback from 0-3.

The home ice triumph means that the trophy stays in Great Britain following Cardiff Devils’ success 12 months ago. British clubs now have a total of 10 medals in the competition, more than any other nation after moving ahead of Belarus. Nottingham, winners in 2017, is now the first UK club to win it twice.

Earlier, Herning Blue Fox won the bronze medal game in a shoot-out against GKS Katowice after clawing back a 0-2 deficit in the third period. And HK Mogo claimed an entertaining placement game with a 4-3 verdict over Angers Ducs.

The tournament directorate nominated the best players as follows:

• Goaltender: Vladislav Pestov (Torpedo Ust-Kamenogorsk)
• Defender: Emil Kristensen (Herning Blue Fox)
• Forward: Didrik Henbrant (Nottingham Panthers)

Nottingham Panthers 4 Torpedo Ust-Kamenogorsk 2 (1-0, 2-0, 1-2)

Nottingham Panthers produced an assured performance in the gold medal game to take a bruising encounter against Torpedo Ust-Kamenogorsk.

Matt Spencer opened the scoring late in the first period before a bad-tempered middle frame brought further tallies from Bryan Lemos and Zech Cooper’s penalty shot. Torpedo refused to give up and almost pulled off a spectacular fightback in the last two minutes. Two goals set Nottingham nerves jangling before an empty net effort secured the win and triggered the celebrations amid a capacity home crowd.

Nolan Volcan, who conjured two fine assists on the first two goals, was thrilled with the whole experience.

“It’s amazing,” he said. “We had this marked on the calendar. To come and execute like we did, with three really good games against really good opposition.

“We played great hockey, our goaltending in these games was elite. It was a team performance all round.”

As expected, Torpedo was willing to play a patient game and hoped to force errors from the home team. And there were signs that the strategy could work early on when Erik Aldabergenov stole the puck from Chase Pearson in front of his own net. The Panthers defence had to scramble to snuff out the danger and the home crowd breathed a sigh of relief.

At the other end, the first Panthers chance fell to Matt Alfaro who saw his angled shot clip the crossbar and go over the top.

“In the first period they came out pretty hot and we coped with it well,” Pearson said. “It was pretty back and forth. In the second period I think we were the better team and I think the scoreline showed that.”

The breakthrough came on 17:49 with Panthers on a delayed penalty. Volcan, instrumental in drawing the initial foul, followed a Pearson feed to the side of the net and turned sharply to send it back into the centre. With the Kazakh defence at full stretch, Spencer skated onto it and fired into an empty net.

That pushed up the energy levels in the building even further and tempers soon frayed. Torpedo had a delayed penalty in the 19th minute and was happy to let the puck do the work. As Nottingham got increasingly edgy without possession, the passage of play ended with Tim Doherty landing a crunching hit on Mikhail Rakhmanov. The Kazakh international took issue, sparking a brief skirmish in the corner of the Panthers’ zone before Torpedo got the first power play of the night.

The Kazakhs began the middle frame on the PP, but that early momentum soon dissipated. Didrik Henbrant’s line posed a constant threat, and it was no surprise that the trio produced Nottingham’s second goal.

Volcan was the architect again, producing a lovely bit of skill to drag the puck between his own legs and set up Lemos in front of the net.

Tempers began to fray and when Pearson fired into Pestov’s net after the whistle a skirmish erupted behind the Torpedo net. 

“I lost my temper a little bit,” Pearson admitted. “But that’s the way hockey goes sometimes. Ultimately we were able to get through it.”

Forty seconds later, Nottingham had a penalty shot which Cooper expertly converted to open a 3-0 lead.

The Panthers had yet to allow a goal in the tournament and Torpedo’s frustration was obvious. At times it spilled over and the Kazakhs were reduced to three skaters late in the session when Andrei Runov followed Alexandr Panchenko into the box.

Andrei Korabeinikov’s men got through that with no further damage but rarely looked like retrieving the situation in the final frame. 

Both teams stayed out of the box – although not out of each other’s faces – as Panthers looked to close out the win.

Yet in the closing moments Torpedo conjured up a major scare for the home team. First, Stanislav Borovikov got a point shot through traffic and past Kevin Carr, robbing the home goalie of a shut-out.

Then a similar play saw Rakhmanov tip home a Fedor Khoroshev effort to make it a one-goal game with 56 seconds to play. It made for a tense finale, before an empty net goal from Zsombor Garat put the result beyond doubt.

“We were a little bit nervous for a couple minutes, when they score back-to-back shifts that’s not good,” said Pearson. “But we stayed cool and scored the empty netter to see it out. Then to win in front of this crowd was amazing.”

And the hooter brought huge celebrations as the home crowd celebrated their heroes.

Herning Blue Fox 3 GKS Katowice 2 SO (0-1, 0-0, 2-1, 0-0, 1-0)

Herning Blue Fox secured bronze at the 2026 IIHF Continental Cup, battling back from 0-2 to win in a shoot-out against GKS Katowice.

Josh Prokop potted the winning penalty shot for Herning, then goalie Mathias Seldrup denied Mateusz Michalski to give the Danes the medal.

“I was the fifth shooter so I kinda knew I had to score,” said Prokop. “It’s a move that I’ve always worked on and liked to do, and I was lucky it worked out.”

The shoot-out success denied GKS a second successive bronze medal after the Poles came third in Cardiff a year ago. Jacek Plachta’s team recovered well after a 0-4 loss to Nottingham less than 24 hours earlier but could not finish the job from a winning position.

“I think they played really well, especially playing three games in three days,” Prokop added.

Like Herning, Katowice turned to its back-up goalie. Michal Kieler saw action in Katowice’s opening game, coming off the bench to navigate a successful shoot-out against Mogo. 

And he had a busy time of it today, facing 44 shots through 65 minutes and frustrating the Blue Fox forwards until the third period.

By that time, GKS was up 2-0. Ian McNulty produced a deft redirect to open the scoring in the third minute. Then, after absorbing plenty of pressure, Katowice doubled its lead right at the start of the third when Patryk Wronka generated traffic in front of Seldrup and Jacob Lundegard’s point shot found its way through.

In adversity, Herning found another gear. By the time GKS managed another shot on target, the score was already 2-2.

Hjalte Thomsen got the first, getting to the doorstep in time to redirect Emil Kristensen’s point shot.

“I just got in front and it hit me in the back,” admitted the 20-year-old forward, one the brightest prospects in Danish hockey. “It wasn’t a pretty one but they all count,” he said. “And it started us off, so it was an important goal.”

If Thomsen is part of Denmark’s future, his captain Morten Poulsen is one of the reasons why the Scandinavians have their currently exalted position in the game. And the veteran forward tied the game midway through the third after GKS failed to clear its zone and Kasper Larsen found him in front of the net to bang it home.

“We talked about patience after the first and second periods,” said Thomsen. “It was just about keeping our cool and having patience and it paid off.”

Once level, it took a shoot-out to separate the teams. Seldrup made some big saves, not least the glove save that denied Michalski, as Prokop’s successful conversion of attempt five gave Herning the bronze.

“It’s always nice to win a medal,” the 25-year-old Canadian concluded. “Now we need to learn from this tournament and take it into the rest of our Danish season.”

Angers Ducs 3 Mogo Riga 4 (1-1, 1-1, 1-2)

Mogo took the verdict over Angers Ducs in an entertaining placement game at the start of the final day of 2026 IIHF Continental Cup action in Nottingham.

The Latvians’ captain Gints Meija summed up a promising week for his club.

“Latvia hasn’t had a team here for, like, 17 years,” he said. “It’s nice to be back in these finals.

“And the whole tournament we played well. All three games were tight. Maybe the first one was 0-4 but our first period was pretty good, and we should have scored. 

“It was a good tournament and experience for us.”

Both teams rebounded from the disappointment of missing out on a chance of a medal and rewarded fans who arrived early at the Motorpoint Arena with a seven-goal battle that ebbed and flowed.

The action exploded into life midway through the first period when the teams traded goals just 31 seconds apart. The Latvians grabbed the lead on 12:01 when club founder Elviss Zelubovskis fired a shot through traffic to beat Elliot Leveque. But Phillipe Halley was quick to tie the game for Angers. The Quebecois forward initially redirected a Fiorenzo Villard point shot, then reacted to convert the rebound.

Halley was involved as Les Ducs went in front in the second period. As the puck looped up over the slot, he nodded it down, soccer-style, before passing it on for captain Robin Gaborit to score from close range.

For a time it seemed that the game was getting away from Mogo but a goal from nothing tied the scores late in the second period. A two-on-one rush saw Janis Zemitis fire into Leveque’s pads before Ernests Krums potted the rebound. Krums was close to scoring in the two previous games and got a deserved and important tally here.

Mogo regained the lead early in the third period through Kaspars Ziemins. The play started with an Angers player slipping in centre ice, enabling Zelubovskis to force a turnover. Gatis Sprukts moved forwards and dished off a pass for Ziemins to score from wide on the right. Angers found another quick reply, with the top line combining for Olivier Archambault to set up Nicolas Ritz with a delicious reverse pass. Ritz took advantage for his third point in as many games.

But Les Ducs had to cope with reduced resources on Saturday after two players were suspended following the overtime victory over Torpedo. And in the closing stages, Mogo found some extra stamina to grab a winner when Rudolfs Maslovskis held off the attentions of two defenders before beating Leveque.