Liiga
Current season, competition or edition: 2016–17 Liiga season
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| Formerly | SM-sarja |
|---|---|
| Sport | Ice hockey |
| Founded | 1975 |
| Inaugural season | 1975–76 |
| CEO | Riku Kallioniemi |
| Motto | Se on totta (It's true) |
| No. of teams | 15 |
| Country | Finland |
| Most recent champion(s) |
Tappara (9th title) |
| Most titles | TPS (10) |
| TV partner(s) | Nelonen Pro 1, Nelonen Pro 2, Nelonen |
| Related competitions |
Mestis, Suomi-sarja |
| Official website | www.liiga.fi (Finnish) |
The Liiga, known as SM-liiga from 1975 to 2013, and colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. As of March 2008, it is ranked by the IIHF as the second strongest league in Europe. It was created in 1975 to replace the SM-sarja, which was fundamentally an amateur league. The SM-liiga is not directly overseen by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association, but the league and association have an agreement of cooperation. SM is a common abbreviation for Suomen mestaruus, "Finnish championship". On 9 August 2013, the league dropped the SM, and simply became Liiga.
In the 2011–12 season there were 14 teams. JYP became the champion. The SM-liiga formerly had a system of automatic promotion and relegation in place between itself and the Mestis, the second highest level of competition in Finland, but the automatic system was ended in 2000. The league was opened in 2005 and allowed KalPa to get a promotion. In 2009 a new system was introduced and it includes the last placed SM-liiga team facing the Mestis champion in a best of seven playout series.
The SM-liiga was constituted in 1975 to concentrate the development of top level Finnish ice hockey, and pave the way towards professionalism. Its predecessor, the SM-sarja, being an amateur competition, had its disadvantages, which were perceived as impeding Finland's rise to the highest ranks of ice hockey.
One of the main problems was that the governing of the SM-sarja was based on the annual meeting of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association, where all important issues were decided by vote. Since all clubs registered under the Finnish Ice Hockey Association had the right to vote, the many amateur clubs prevailed over the few business-like clubs. Therefore, the concentrated development of top-level Finnish ice hockey by the motivated and financially capable clubs proved arduous. The new SM-liiga was to be run by a board consisting of its participating clubs only and to have an agreement of cooperation with the Finnish Ice Hockey Association.
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