The SM-liiga has said that it will hold a press conference at around 8:30 p.m. will update this article with the evening’s events.
Joel Sippola,
Mika Halonen
The general meeting of 15 SM league clubs will be held today in Helsinki, where, according to preliminary information, the main lines of the future series model of the SM league will be discussed. After that, SM-liiga Oy organizes a press conference at 8:30 p.m., where it tells about the decisions of its general meeting.
Urheilu updates this article with the announcement of the press conference.
Read also: News from the ice hockey league is expected in the language of water – will the SM league open after a decade’s break?
The series system of the SM league and its development has been a big topic of conversation for a long time. The league has been closed for ten years, which means that it has not been possible to drop out of the series and there have been no league qualifiers between the weakest team in the SM league and the best team in Mestis.
In the 2000s, the SM League was initially closed from the 2000–2001 season until the 2007–2008 season. However, Kuopio KalPa got a place in the SM league for the 2005–2006 season after meeting the selection criteria.
The league was open for five seasons between 2008 and 2013, but not once did the Mestis champion manage to win the weakest link in the SM league.
The league put the series back into shape in 2013. A license system was replaced, and in the following years Sport, KooKoo and Jokerit, which were among Mestis’ top clubs, were promoted to the main league. At the same time, Jokerit, who played in the SM league, left for the Russian KHL league.
Espoon Blues, on the other hand, went bankrupt. Since the 2016–2017 season, there have been 15 teams in the SM league.
Read more: Survey: 98 percent of players want the SM league open
Clearance sales and faded Mestis
The reason for keeping the league closed is especially for financial reasons. The league clubs wanted to secure their finances, which is why they decided on the series model in question.
Of course, the SM-liiga has tried to justify that you can enter the SM-league through the license system by fulfilling the license conditions. Jurists have said that the closed operating model does not withstand legality scrutiny from the point of view of competition law.
The SM league’s decision-making system has been considered a hack. Big decisions, such as changes to the series system, require a two-thirds majority at the SM league’s shareholders’ meeting, i.e. at least 10 clubs must support the matter. For example, Urheilulehti wrote that there is such a big gap between the big and small clubs in the SM league that it has been difficult to make decisions about common issues.
In recent years, however, the discussion about opening the series has intensified. The 15-team SM league has been seen to mock the competition. The quality of players is not enough for all teams.
Every year, a few or more SM league clubs have fallen out of the playoff fight long before the final stages of the 60 regular season matches. There has been talk of so-called clearance sales, where clubs have, as it were, given up and given up their expensive key players in the middle of the season.
At the same time, Finland’s second-highest league level, Mestis, has also been weakened, as the league’s teams have not been given the opportunity to fight for league promotion through the qualifiers. The gap, both financially and athletically, between the two series has grown enormous.
Back in the summer of 2023, the SM League announced that it would not accept new applications for the 2024–2025 season. It announced that it wants to calmly and completely re-evaluate the SM league’s license criteria.
Now, at the beginning of October, the SM League announced that it will accept license applications for the 2024–2025 season. After the SM league’s latest announcement, Kiekko-Espoo confirmed that it will apply for a league license for next season.
Mestis-Jokerit brought a lot of fun
However, the return of the Jokers to the domestic ice rinks this fall has brought a new kind of sparkle to Finnish league ice hockey. The return of the Jokers has attracted widespread interest, which has been reflected, among other things, in the audience numbers.
Last week, the Jokerit set an all-time audience record for Mesti’s 8,200 spectators against Kiekko-Vantaa at the Helsinki Ice Hall. The average audience for the seven matches is 4,300 spectators.
The SM League announced last week that you can still apply for SM League licenses for the next season. Jokerit intends to apply for a league place for the 2025–2026 season, but Kiekko-Espoo, who won the Mestis championship last season, has already stated their desire to move up to the main league next season.