SMliigassa

SMliigassa is a Finnish term meaning “in the SM-liiga.” SM-liiga was Finland’s top professional ice hockey league from its establishment in 1975 until it was rebranded as Liiga in 2013. The abbreviation SM stands for Suomen mestaruus, the Finnish Championship, and liiga means league. Before 1975, the national champion was decided in the SM-sarja.

The league functioned as the premier level of Finnish hockey, producing many players who later competed internationally, including in the NHL and for the Finnish national team. In 2013 the branding changed to Liiga, but the term SM-liiga and the name SM-liigassa still appear in older sources and in historical references to the top Finnish league.

Competition format typically features a regular season where teams play a set schedule (historically around 60 games per team), followed by a postseason in which the top teams compete in best-of-seven series to determine the champion. The playoff champion is awarded the Kanada-malja trophy, a long-standing symbol of Finnish hockey supremacy. Licensing and development systems govern participation, with promotion and relegation having varied over time in relation to the second-tier levels.

In usage, SMliigassa refers to events, statistics, or players associated with the SM-liiga era or context. Today, the league operates under the Liiga brand, but SMliigassa remains a part of Finland’s hockey history and is still encountered in discussions of the sport’s past in Finland.