A long match break interrupts the women’s F-league games in Lappeenranta and Jyväskylä for a long time at the turn of the year. SaiPa has no more than seven weeks of downtime.
The women’s floorball league match schedule contains a couple of special details. Lappeenranta’s SaiPa and 02-Jyväskylä play games with a weekly trade in the middle of the league season.
There will be a seven-week break for SaiPa and more than six weeks for O2 on both sides of the new year.
The main league manager of the floor band league Joni Toivolan according to, moving the mutual game from December to January explains the long game break of the mentioned teams.
– The match had to be postponed because all possible spots were booked (December 16), Toivola says.
SaiPa’s head coach Toni Soikkel in my opinion, the matches of the season are placed unevenly in the calendar.
– It’s a bit sad that there is such a long break, even if there was only one game in between. Now let’s pull this start at a terrible pace, just like last season, Soikkeli purns.
Last year, SaiPa played 17 matches in the women’s F-league B group in the autumn season, while in the spring regular season the Lappeenranta team only played four matches.
The manager of O2-Jyväskylä is also on the same lines Jesse Järvinen.
– It’s a terribly short period where the games are played. In the fall there is sometimes a terrible backlog of matches, and then at the turn of the year there is such a really long break from series games, Järvinen sums up.
He hopes that in the future a triple series would be played in the F-League.
– I also understand that there are financial issues involved. There is a common view within the team that it would be nice to play matches a little more evenly.
According to the main league manager Toivola, the goal of the F-league is that all teams have the same number of matches at the same stage of the season.
– It is not always possible in the overall picture due to the fact that our main league teams do not have their own halls, but the series is partly played in municipal and commercial halls, Toivola justifies.
– We cannot make the work of the clubs too difficult by forcing them to play in different halls than where they are used to playing their home matches. As an example, Jyväskylä is a difficult place in terms of futsal being played there as well as floorball for men and women.
National team breaks interrupt the league season
Even in previous seasons, the F-league has seen long game breaks for both women and men. The breaks are timed in connection with the World Cup, i.e. November-December.
For example, in the 2021–22 season, Helsinki United had a match break of no less than eight weeks in the women’s F-League.
CEO of the F-League Kimmo Nurminen says that the competition seasons make the planning of series programs much more difficult.
– So what would be the ideal time to play value matches? Before, they were always played in the spring at the end of the season, Nurminen asks and adds that Korona has significantly influenced the planning of match programs in recent seasons due to individual game transfers.
In the Men’s F-League, for example, TPS played for six weeks around the World Cup home games a couple of years ago.
This season, the men’s F-League will be played on sixteen different game days in December, and the women’s F-League on only one day (December 16).
Toivola, who was planning the women’s match program, says that she wanted to devote the Christmas period to training and partly to vacationing.
Toivola reveals that the planning of next season’s match programs is already under way.
– Let’s try to discuss between the municipalities and cities at the beginning of the year, how to get the match schedules a little better planned for next season.
SaiPa is second in the 12-team women’s F-League, having won five of its six matches. The reigning champion TPS continues at the top of the league with a clean game.
You can see the standings at this link.