FINLAND: SM-liiga

The SM-liiga is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. As of 2009, it is ranked by the IIHF as the second strongest league in Europe. It was constituted in 1975 to replace the SM-sarja, which was fundamentally an amateur league. The SM-liiga has an agreement of cooperation with the Finnish ice hockey federation Suomen Jääkiekkoliitto. SM is a common abbreviation for Suomen mestaruus, "Finnish championship".

At the moment, there are 14 teams. The SM-liiga was closed in 2000 so that no team can be relegated to or promoted from the lower leagues without approval of the board of the SM-liiga. The board have committed themselves to promote the first winner of Mestis (the second highest competition) that meets certain standards.

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 federation Suomen Jääkiekkoliitto, where all important issues were decided by vote. Since all clubs registered under the Jääkiekkoliitto 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 proved arduous, even impossible. The new SM-liiga was to be run by a board consisting of its participating clubs only, and have an agreement of cooperation with the Jääkiekkoliitto.

The SM-sarja was also outdated on its own, as it was run according to amateur principles. Clubs were not supposed to pay their players beyond compensation for lost wages. However, by the 1970s many clubs were already run like businesses, and recruited players through a contract of employment, paying their wages secretly and often evading taxes. However, in 1974, accounting reform in Finland extended book-keeping standards to cover sports clubs, and shortfalls were exposed in audit raids. The SM-liiga was to allow wages for players and clubs were also put under a tighter supervision. They were to establish their own association for SM-liiga ice hockey only, separating their commitments from junior activities and other sports. Copies of all player contracts were to be sent to the SM-liiga to provide players with adequate security, such as insurance and pensions.

The SM-sarja had other limits for players. According to amateur ideals, no player could represent more than one club within one season. Personal sponsorship was also forbidden. To discourage trading, a system of quarantine was in force. The SM-liiga stripped the limitations for players, replaced quarantine with a then-modest transfer payment, and introduced the transfer list. Players wanting a transfer were to sign up, and the SM-liiga would distribute the right of negotiations to clubs. In practice the list was not successful, as both parties often worked their way around the formalities.

These changes led to a transition towards professional ice hockey, probably best called semi-professional. Only a few players would make a livelihood out of ice hockey in Finland in the 1970s and many players, especially the young, would settle for a contract in the SM-liiga without a wage.

One more major, and in the fans' point of view, the most noteworthy enhancement, was the playoffs. Gate receipts and other income from playoffs were pooled and distributed as a placement bonus. Although play-offs were the standard way of determining the champions in North American professional sports, at the time they were not common in Europe.

The SM-liiga was established rather hastily. The required changes were initiated in the 1974 annual meeting, and the SM-liiga was launched for the season 1975-76. It was the first Finnish professional sports league, and its solutions were untried. However, there had been a mounting demand for these changes, as the popularity of ice hockey had been rising in the last ten years.

The SM-liiga picked up where the SM-sarja left off with its 10 clubs. The four best of the regular season were to proceed to the play-offs. The system of promotion and relegation from the SM-sarja remained in force: last-placed teams of the regular season had to qualify for their position in the SM-liiga against the best teams of the second-highest series.

The combined attendance for the first eleven regular seasons hovered around 900,000. In 1986-87 the number of games for each team was increased from 36 to 44 (and reached 56 in 2000-01), and the SM-liiga was expanded to 12 clubs for the season 1988-89. The general popularity of ice hockey strengthened through international success of the Finnish national team, and the combined attendance climbed through the 1990s to about 1.8 million. This prompted an increase in the profitability of the ice hockey business and the completion of the transition to full professionalism. By the mid-1990s, all players were full-time, and by 2000, most clubs had reformed into limited companies.

In the modern Finnish top-level ice hockey range of thought there are two types of clubs: those that have the resources to maintain a business-like professional ice hockey club, and deserve participation in SM-liiga - and the others that do not. Since the 2000-2001 season, the SM-liiga has been closed, meaning that relegations and promotions take place only by the judgment of the board of the SM-liiga. The only such promotion took place instantly in 2000. Without the threat of relegation, the weaker clubs were supposed to be able to recuperate and improve. This had, however, a side effect: clubs with a losing record that had lost their hopes of reaching the playoffs often disposed of high-salary star players, letting down their supporters. To counteract this, the playoffs were expanded to the best 10 (out of 13).