Wikipedia - 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.
Den finska damhockeyligan är den högsta nivån inom damhockey i Finland. Ligan består av tio lag som spelar 36 matcher under grundserien. De fyra bästa lagen går vidare till slutspel, där det lag som vinner flest matcher i bäst av fem-serier koras till mästare.
Ligan grundades 1982 och har sedan dess vuxit i popularitet. De senaste åren har ligan lockat allt fler utländska spelare, vilket har gjort den mer konkurrenskraftig.
Några av de mest framgångsrika lagen i ligan är:
* Espoo Blues
* HIFK
* KalPa
* Kärpät
* Lukko
* TPS
Den finska damhockeyligan är en av de bästa damhockeyligorna i världen och erbjuder spännande matcher med högt tempo.