Naisten Liiga (ice hockey)

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. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

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.
 * Regular season

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 (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.

The teams finishing the season ranked ninth and tenth play a promotion/relegation series (karsintasarja) against the top two teams of the Naisten Mestis regular season. 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.
 * Qualification

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.

1980s

 * Ässät (Pori), 1982–1995
 * EVU (Vantaa), 1982–1990
 * Haukat (Järvenpää), 1982–83
 * HJK (Helsinki), 1982–1986
 * Jäähonka (Espoo), 1982–1984
 * SaiPa (Lappeenranta), 1982–1992
 * Shakers (Kerava), 1982–1985 & 1986–1996
 * Tiikerit (Hämeenlinna), 1982–1984, 1987–88 & 1989–90
 * Kiekko-Vesa (Raahe), 1983–1985
 * Teräs-Kiekko (Raahe), 1983–1985
 * Ilves-Kiekko (Tampere), 1984–1987 & 1988–1990
 * Ketterä (Imatra), 1984–85 & 1991–1993
 * StU (Savitaipale), 1984–85

1990s

 * Karhut (Joensuu)
 * JoKP, 1992–1994
 * Kiekko-Karhut, 1994–1997
 * Karhut, 1997–98


 * Tappara (Tampere), 1993–94 & 1997–2008
 * JyP HT (Jyväskylä)
 * JyP HT, 1989–1997
 * JYP, 1997–2000


 * IHK (Helsinki), 1998–2009
 * K-Kissat (Helsinki), 1999–2002

2000s

 * JyHC (Jyväskylä)
 * JyHC, 1996–2004
 * Cats, 2004–2009
 * JYP, 2009–2016 & 2020–21
 * KS Noux (Espoo), 2002–03
 * Y-Ilves (Ylöjärvi), 2002–2004
 * Team China, 2005–2007
 * LoKV (Lohja), 2008–2012
 * Salo HT (Salo), 2008–2013
 * APV (Alavus), 2009–10, 2019–20 & 2021–22
 * KJT (Kerava)
 * KJT, 2013–2018
 * KJT Haukat, 2018–19
 * Sport (Vaasa), 2018–2022
 * Lukko (Rauma), 2016–2021 & 2022–23

Sources:

All-time medal count
– team participated in 2023–24 Naisten Liiga season Notes:

Sources:

Finnish Champions by season
Notes:
 * † Included in record of Kiekko-Espoo
 * ‡ Included in record of JYP Jyväskylä

Sources:

League records
All-time records of the Naisten Liiga, from the 1982–83 season through the conclusion of the 2023–24 season.

Single-season records
Players appearing in ten or fewer games during a single season are not included.
 * 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)

Players appearing in three or fewer games during a single playoff are not included.
 * Single-playoff records
 * Most goals: Elisa Holopainen, 19 goals (12 games; 2022, Kiekko-Espoo)
 * Most assists: Susanna Tapani, 14 assists (6 games; 2015, HPK)
 * Most points: Elisa Holopainen, 29 points (12 games; 2022, Kiekko-Espoo)
 * Most points, defenceman: Nelli Laitinen, 21 points (10 games; 2022, Kiekko-Espoo)
 * Best points per game: Riikka Sallinen, 4.40 points per game (5 games; 1994, Shakers)
 * Most penalty minutes: Marjo Voutilainen, 45 PIM (4 games; 2012, KalPa)
 * Best save percentage: Noora Räty, .970 SV% (9 games; 2008, Blues)
 * Best goals against average: Meeri Räisänen, 0.80 (6 games; 2016, JYP)
 * Most shutouts: Two players, 5 shutouts
 * Isabella Portnoj (9 games; 2013, Blues)
 * Tiia Pajarinen (10 games; 2021, Kiekko-Espoo)

Career records
Players appearing in fewer than thirty regular season games during their Naisten Liiga career are not included.
 * Most games played, skater: Riikka Noronen, 644 games (1995–2022)
 * Most goals: Karoliina Rantamäki, 387 goals (433 games; 1992–2024)
 * Most assists: Riikka Noronen, 447 assists (644 games; 1995–2022)
 * Most points: Riikka Noronen, 775 points (644 games; 1995–2022)
 * Most points, defenceman: Päivi Halonen, 495 points (408 games; 1982–2006)
 * Best points per game: Michelle Karvinen, 3.667 points per game (39 games; 2007–2009)
 * Most penalty minutes: Rosa Lindstedt, 483 PIM (314 games; 2002–2016)
 * Most games played, goaltender: Susanna Airaksinen, 224 games (2009–2022)
 * Best save percentage: Johanna Oksman, .931 SV% (100 games; 2012–2022)
 * Best goals against average: Kiia Lahtinen, 1.48 GAA (48 games; 2019–2024)
 * Most shutouts: Tiina Ranne, 34 shutouts (210 games; 2010–2024)

Players appearing in ten or fewer Naisten Liiga playoff games during their career are not included.
 * Career playoff records
 * Most goals: Karoliina Rantamäki, 81 goals (117 games; 1992–2024)
 * Most assists: Linda Välimäki, 72 assists (93 games; 2005–2019)
 * Most points: Karoliina Rantamäki, 144 points (117 games; 1992–2024)
 * Most points, defenceman: Saija Tarkki, 89 points (145 games; 1997–2019)
 * Best points per game: Michelle Karvinen, 2.27 points per game (15 games; 2007–2009)
 * Most penalty minutes: Tea Villilä, 131 PIM (111 games; 2007–2024)
 * Best save percentage: Kassidy Sauvé, .939 SV% (12 games; 2021–2024)
 * Best goals against average: Kiia Lahtinen, 1.39 (13 games; 2020–2024)
 * Most shutouts: Tiia Pajarinen, 15 shutouts (55 games; 2015–2024)

All-time scoring leaders
The top-ten regular season point-scorers in Naisten SM-sarja/Naisten Liiga history, through the conclusion of 2023–24 season.

Note: Nat = Nationality; Pos = Position; GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game; S = Seasons played;  = player active in 2023–24 Naisten Liiga season