Naisten Liiga

Most recent season or competition: 2023–24 Naisten Liiga season
Formerly	Naisten SM-sarja 1982–2017
Sport	Ice hockey
Founded	1982 (1982)
First season	as Naisten SM-sarja, 1982–83 as Naisten Liiga, 2017–18
Director	Henni Laaksonen[1]
Organising body	Finnish Ice Hockey Association
No. of teams	9
Country	Finland
Most recent champion(s)	HIFK Helsinki (2023–24)
Most titles	Kiekko-Espoo (16)
Streaming partner(s)	Leijonat.tv
Relegation to	Naisten Mestis
International cup(s)	European Women's Champions Cup
Official website	Official website

Naisten Liiga (lit. 'Women's League'), also called the Naisten SM-liiga (NSML) and Jääkiekon naisten SM-liiga (lit. 'Ice Hockey Women's Finnish Championship League'), is the elite league for women's ice hockey in Finland. Founded by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association as the Naisten SM-sarja (lit. 'Women's Finnish Championship series') in 1982, it was so known until being rebranded as the Naisten Liiga in 2017.^[2][3] The league comprises approximately 250 players across ten teams.

Kiekko-Espoo (previously known as Espoo Blues, Espoo United, and EKS) has been the dominating force of the Naisten Liiga in the 21st century, winning sixteen Finnish Championships from 1999 to 2022.^[4] Tampereen Ilves is the second most successful club in league history, with ten championship titles, and are the only organization to have iced a team in every season since the league's inception.

A majority of teams in Naisten Liiga share their names with men's professional teams in the Liiga or Mestis – HIFK, HPK, Ilves, KalPa, Kiekko-Espoo, Kärpät, Lukko, RoKi, TPS – but the women's teams have historically received few resources and limited promotion from the affiliated men's clubs.^[5] In recent years progress has been made in building better relationships between the men's and women's teams; most men's clubs now provide some support to their women's counterparts by advertising games together or helping secure sponsorships.^[6][7]

Format

Season format

The Finnish Ice Hockey Association has altered the season format of the Naisten Liiga several times over the league's history. The system currently in use was introduced for the 2022–23 season.^[8] It added six games per team to the regular season schedule and matched the season structure of the league's closest neighbor, the Swedish Women's Hockey League (SDHL). The new format replaced the previous twenty-game preliminary series and ten-game divisional series structure, which was first introduced in the 2018–19 season and refined prior to the 2019–20 season.^[9]

Regular season

The regular season is a quadruple round-robin tournament, with each team playing every other team four times – typically, each team plays every other team twice at home and twice away – resulting in a 36-game season per team. Teams are ranked by points, with three points awarded for a win in regulation time, two points for an overtime win, one point for an overtime loss, and no points awarded for a regulation loss. Individual player statistics from the regular season determine the winner of the Marianne Ihalainen Award, for most points, and the Tiia Reima Award, for most goals scored.

The top eight teams at the end of the regular season qualify for the Naisten Liiga playoffs.

Playoffs

The three rounds of the Naisten Liiga playoffs (Finnish: Naisten Liiga pudotuspelit) are played as a best-of-five tournament, with the exception of the single-elimination game for the Finnish Championship bronze medal. In the quarterfinals, the initial round, teams are paired by seeding from the regular season, with the first seed facing the eighth seed, the second seed facing the seventh seed, and so on.

The champions of the Naisten Liiga playoffs receive the Aurora Borealis Cup as league champions and gold medals as Finnish Champions in women's ice hockey. Selected by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association, the MVP of the playoffs is awarded the Karoliina Rantamäki Trophy.

Qualification

The teams finishing the season ranked ninth and tenth play a promotion/relegation series (Finnish: karsintasarja, lit. 'qualifying series') against the top two teams of the Naisten Mestis regular season.^[8] The two teams that finish the series with the most points qualify for the following Naisten Liiga season and the two lower ranked teams are relegated to or remain in the Naisten Mestis for the following season.

Game format

A regulation game is sixty minutes in length, played over three 20-minute periods. In the event of a tie at the end of regulation time the winner is decided by a five-minute-length, three-skaters-per-side overtime period. If the game remains tied after the overtime period, the teams proceed to a shootout, in which each team designates three skaters to take penalty shots, one at a time, against the opposing goaltender. Teams alternate shots and each team takes one shot per round. The winner is the team with more goals after three rounds or the team that amasses an unreachable advantage before the third round. If the shootout is tied after three rounds, tie-breaker rounds are played one at a time until there is a winner.

Teams

2023–24 season

HIFK

HPK

Ilves

KalPa

K-Espoo

Kärpät

RoKi

Kuortane

TPS

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Location of teams in the Naisten Liiga

Team	Location	Home venue	Head coach	Captain
HIFK	Helsinki	Pirkkolan jäähalli	Saara Niemi	Karoliina Rantamäki
HPK	Hämeenlinna	Jääliikuntakeskus Hakio	Jari Risku	Heta Seikkula
Ilves	Tampere	Tesoman jäähalli	Marjo Voutilainen	Jenna Lehtiniemi
KalPa	Kuopio	Niiralan Monttu	Mika Väärälä	Johanna Juutilainen
Kiekko-Espoo	Espoo	Tapiolan harjoitusareena	Sami Haapanen	Reetta Valkjärvi
Kärpät	Oulu	Raksilan jäähalli	Satu Kiipeli	Aino Kaijankoski
RoKi	Rovaniemi	Lappi Areena	Teemu Koivula	Eveliina Ollila
Team Kuortane	Kuortane	Kuortaneen jäähalli	Juuso Nieminen	Jenniina Kuoppala
TPS	Turku	Kupittaan jäähalli	Terhi Mertanen	Pihla Hämeenniemi

Past participants

Sources:^[10][11]

Champions

All-time medal count

  – team participated in 2023–24 Naisten Liiga season

Team
Kiekko-Espoo[a]	16	4	8
Tampereen Ilves	10	12	6
Oulun Kärpät	3	7	8
Shakers Kerava	3	4	1
JYP Jyväskylä[b]	3	4	0
Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna i Helsingfors (HIFK)	2	1	3
Helsingin Jääkiekkoklubi (HJK)	2	1	1
Etelä-Vantaan Urheilijat (EVU)	1	5	1
Hämeenlinnan Pallokerho (HPK)	1	1	4
Kalevan Pallo (KalPa)	0	1	4
Itä-Helsingin Kiekko (IHK)	0	1	1
Saimaan Pallo (SaiPa)	0	0	1
Team Kuortane	0	0	1
Vaasan Sport	0	0	1

Notes:

Sources:^[12][13][14]

Finnish Champions by season

Season	Champion	Runner-up	Third Place
1982–83	HJK Helsinki	Ilves Tampere	EVU Vantaa
1983–84	HJK Helsinki	EVU Vantaa	Ilves Tampere
1984–85	Ilves Tampere	EVU Vantaa	HJK Helsinki
1985–86	Ilves Tampere	HJK Helsinki	Vaasan Sport
1986–87	Ilves Tampere	EVU Vantaa	Shakers Kerava
1987–88	Ilves Tampere	EVU Vantaa	HIFK Helsinki
1988–89	EVU Vantaa	Ilves Tampere	HIFK Helsinki
1989–90	Ilves Tampere	EVU Vantaa	SaiPa Lappeenranta
1990–91	Ilves Tampere	Shakers Kerava	EKS Espoo†
1991–92	Ilves Tampere	Shakers Kerava	EKS Espoo†
1992–93	Ilves Tampere	Shakers Kerava	Kiekko-Espoo
1993–94	Shakers Kerava	Ilves Tampere	Kiekko-Espoo
1994–95	Shakers Kerava	Ilves Tampere	KalPa Kuopio
1995–96	Shakers Kerava	Oulun Kärpät	KalPa Kuopio
1996–97	JyP HT Jyväskylä‡	Shakers Kerava	Kiekko-Espoo
1997–98	JYP Jyväskylä	Kärpät Oulu	Kiekko-Espoo
1998–99	Espoo Blues†	JYP Jyväskylä	Ilves Tampere
1999-2000	Espoo Blues†	Kärpät Oulu	Ilves Tampere
2000–01	Espoo Blues†	Kärpät Oulu	Ilves Tampere
2001–02	Espoo Blues†	IHK Helsinki	Kärpät Oulu
2002–03	Espoo Blues†	Kärpät Oulu	Ilves Tampere
2003–04	Espoo Blues†	Ilves Tampere	Kärpät Oulu
2004–05	Espoo Blues†	Ilves Tampere	Kärpät Oulu
2005–06	Ilves Tampere	Kärpät Oulu	Espoo Blues†
2006–07	Espoo Blues†	Kärpät Oulu	IHK Helsinki
2007–08	Espoo Blues†	Ilves Tampere	Oulun Kärpät
2008–09	Espoo Blues†	Ilves Tampere	HPK Hämeenlinna
2009–10	Ilves Tampere	Espoo Blues†	HPK Hämeenlinna
2010–11	HPK Hämeenlinna	Ilves Tampere	Kärpät Oulu
2011–12	Kärpät Oulu	Ilves Tampere	HPK Hämeenlinna
2012–13	Espoo Blues†	JYP Jyväskylä	Kärpät Oulu
2013–14	Espoo Blues†	JYP Jyväskylä	HPK Hämeenlinna
2014–15	Espoo Blues†	JYP Jyväskylä	Ilves Tampere
2015–16	JYP Jyväskylä	HPK Hämeenlinna	Espoo Blues†
2016–17	Kärpät Oulu	Espoo United†	KalPa Kuopio
2017–18	Kärpät Oulu	Ilves Tampere	Team Kuortane
2018–19	Espoo Blues†	Ilves Tampere	Kärpät Oulu
2019–20	Post-season cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic.[a]
2020–21	Kiekko-Espoo	KalPa Kuopio	HIFK Helsinki
2021–22	Kiekko-Espoo	HIFK Helsinki	Kärpät Oulu
2022–23	HIFK Helsinki	Kiekko-Espoo	KalPa Kuopio
2023–24	HIFK Helsinki	Kiekko-Espoo	KalPa Kuopio

Notes:

^† Included in record of Kiekko-Espoo

^‡ Included in record of JYP Jyväskylä

Sources:^{[12][13][14][16]}

League records

All-time records of the Naisten Liiga, from the 1982–83 season through the conclusion of the 2023–24 season.^[17]

Single-season records

Players appearing in ten or fewer games during a single season are not included.^[18]

• Most goals: Riikka Sallinen, 73 goals (21 games; 1993–94, Shakers)
• Most assists: Jenni Hiirikoski, 62 assists (28 games; 2015–16, JYP)
• Most points: Riikka Sallinen, 129 points (21 games; 1993–94, Shakers)
• Most points, defenceman: Jenni Hiirikoski, 79 points (29 games; 2015–16, JYP)
• Best points per game: Riikka Sallinen, 6.14 points per game (21 games; 1993–94, Shakers)
• Most penalty minutes: Jenna Grönroos, 98 PIM (15 games; 2011–12, LoKV)
• Best save percentage: Meeri Räisänen, .965 SV% (21 games; 2012–13, JYP)
• Best goals against average: Tiina Ranne, 0.87 GAA (15 games; 2015–16, JYP)
• Most shutouts: Meeri Räisänen, 7 shutouts (21 games; 2012–13, JYP)

Single-playoff records

Players appearing in three or fewer games during a single playoff are not included.^[19]

• Most goals: Elisa Holopainen, 19 goals (12 games; 2022, Kiekko-Espoo)
• Most assists: Susanna Tapani, 14 assists (6 games; 2015, HPK)
Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Naisten_Liiga_(ice_hockey)
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