By 2006, France's top tier, the Ligue Magnus, included a few surviving teams from the defunct Ligue Élite (1997–2002), a failed professional circuit that played both mid-week and weekend games, while the majority of its members were former participants in the semi-professional Nationale 1 (second tier), who had been enticed to form a new league with their larger peers, partly based on the promise that the fledgling loop would—at least in the beginning—keep the cheaper, weekend-based schedule they used to operate on.

[1] As such, the Ligue Magnus initially represented a drop in intensity, which the French Ice Hockey Federation was intent on remedying without alienating its more budget-conscious constituents.

This led to a transitional period, where the governing body kept regular season games at a relative minimum (26) to preserve the semi-professional model demanded by some clubs, while adding potential cup and playoff games to provide more competitive and revenue opportunities to those who wanted them.

[1][2] In 2016, French federation president Luc Tardif announced that, despite the continued reluctance of some structurally or financially challenged clubs, he would enact the long-delayed switch of the regular season to a 44-game, three-game-a-week schedule, which was needed to keep in touch with accepted international standards.

The two best teams from each group qualified for the knockout phase, with quarterfinals and semifinals consisting of home-and-home series decided on aggregate score, and the final consisting of a single game played on neutral ice.