Three periods
A game is three 20-minute periods of 5-on-5 hockey, with intermissions in between. The team that scores more goals wins.
Finland · 2026–27
Liiga, explained.
Finland. One table. One Kanada-malja. Here’s the quick guide.
Liiga (SM-liiga) is Finland's top flight. Clubs play a long regular season, then a playoff for the Kanada-malja — the Finnish championship trophy.
A short history
SM-liiga launched in 1975 as a fully professional successor to the old SM-sarja. The championship trophy is the Kanada-malja, donated by Finnish-Canadian communities in 1951.
How the league works
Same ice, same three periods — then a points race into a national playoff.
Standings points
A regulation win is worth three points. An overtime or shootout win is two. An overtime or shootout loss is one. A regulation loss is zero.
Overtime
Most European regular-season games that are tied after 60 minutes go to a short overtime, then a shootout. Playoff overtime is usually played until someone scores.
Power play
A penalty puts the other team a skater up. That extra-man advantage is the power play; the shorthanded side is on the penalty kill.
Offside and icing
A player cannot enter the offensive zone ahead of the puck (offside). Icing is shooting the puck the length of the ice from behind centre; play stops and the faceoff comes back.
The table
Liiga ranks clubs by points through the regular season, then seeds the playoff that awards the Kanada-malja.
The season
Training camp in late summer, a fall-to-spring regular season, then a spring playoff.
How the playoffs work
The champion is the club that wins the Kanada-malja playoff — not always the team that finished first in the regular season.
Who gets in
A set number of clubs from the regular-season table qualify. Some leagues also run a play-in or a relegation round underneath the title race.
Knockout rounds
Series are usually best-of-five or best-of-seven. Home ice goes to the higher seed.
The title
The last club standing is the Kanada-malja champion.