The Challenge Cup

Updated October 9, 2026

The Challenge Cup is Brudvig Hockey's tournament. 45 teams, single elimination, five rounds. You play every game your team plays, and the computer gets tougher every round. Lose once and you're out. There's no sign-up and no email: the cup saves on your device after every game, so you can stop and pick it up later. When it's over, put your name in and your run goes in the record books.

Teams

45, drawn into a random bracket

Rounds

Round of 32, Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Championship

Format

One game a round. One loss ends your cup.

Every game

3-minute periods, the same speed and hits for everyone

The computer

Gets harder every round, and so do its goalies

Kinds

Player cup (skaters) or Goalie cup (in net)

Needs

Nothing: no sign-up, no email

Record books

Your name, your run and your stats, when it ends

Starting a cup

1. Tap Challenge Cup on the main menu, then Start a Challenge Cup. No sign-up, no email.
2. Pick a team. All 45 are available, with their ratings shown.
3. Pick a Player cup or a Goalie cup.
4. The draw. The 45 teams are drawn into a bracket at random. Reshuffle draws again, as often as you like. Lock it in and that's the bracket.

Player cup or Goalie cup

In a Goalie cup you can still play the puck. You just can't skate it up the ice. Keeping skater and goalie stats apart is the point.

The rules

• Everyone plays the same cup, so the record books mean something: 3-minute periods, the default speed, hits and speed edge, and a computer (and computer goalie) that gets harder as you go. The Round of 32 is a friendly start, the Championship is not. Your own Settings don't apply in the cup.
• One game a round. A tie goes to a 1-minute sudden-death overtime, then a shootout, so every game has a winner.
• Every game you're not in is played out from the team ratings. A team rated 94 beats a team rated 66 about 97% of the time. Two teams rated 79 is a coin flip. Each of those games gets a full box score, so the league leaders cover everyone.
• Lose and your cup is over. The rest of the bracket plays itself out and crowns a champion, so you find out who beat the team that beat you.
• One active cup at a time. Abandon cup ends it early. It stays in your history, marked abandoned.

The Championship

Reach the final and you get an intro before the puck drops: both teams, one game, and in the game's words, somebody leaves with a very shiny bowl. Win it and there's a trophy, confetti and a short celebration. Then you sign the Cup: your name goes on the list of champions.

The record books

When your cup ends, won or lost, you can put a name in: 2 to 20 letters, numbers and spaces, no account needed. Your run and its stats go in the record books for everyone to see. Skip it and you can add your name later from Cup history.

• Champions: every named Challenge Cup winner, newest first, with their record and stats. The latest ones show on the cup home.
• Skaters: the best Player cup runs, most points first.
• Goalies: the best Goalie cup runs of three games or more, best save percentage first.

Bracket, leaders, history and career

• Bracket: every round and every score. Tap any computer game for its box score. During a cup game, the post-game screen has View bracket.
• League leaders: every player who played in a cup, skaters and goalies, with every column sortable. Your players are highlighted.
• Cup history: every cup you've played, won, lost or abandoned.
• Career: separate Skater and Goalie tabs, with totals, a line for each cup and a line for each team you've played for. A Player cup counts your three skaters together, and your plus-minus is the goal difference. A Goalie cup counts your goalie.

A profile from before

You don't need one. If you made a profile before the cup went sign-up free, Log in is on the cup home: your cups and stats are on it, and it carries them to any device. Log out and Delete profile are on its profile screen; deleting asks for your password and for you to type "delete", then removes the profile, every cup and every stat. Passwords are stored as salted PBKDF2 hashes, not as text, and repeated wrong logins get locked out for a few minutes.

Who usually wins

The ratings decide the computer games. In 2,000 cups simulated with the game's own cup code, the Milwaukee Pucks won 451, the St Paul Norsemen 321, the American Eagles 305 and the Canadian Greats 160. Every team's numbers are on its own page, from the teams page. Your own games are played, not simulated, so a weak team just means harder games. Picking the California Gold is allowed. It's a choice.