Finnish hockey league season gets under way amidst speculation over NHL imports

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Today, Thursday sees the first round of matches in the 2004-2005 season of Finland's premier ice hockey league. Thirteen teams will be playing for a place in the play-offs and the chance to win the Canada Trophy, currently held by Kärpät of Oulu.
      This league season sees one significant change in the points-scoring procedures. A win in normal time will result in three points to the winners. The concept of a tied game will no longer exist. Matches will be played to a result first through a 5-minute sudden death overtime, and if that is scoreless, then via penalty shots.
      A victory gained in this fashion will produce two points to the winner and one point to the defeated team.
     
The first round of matches deliberately features a number of local derbies, including a match-up between the two Helsinki teams HIFK and Jokerit, and the pairing of Tampere rivals Ilves and Tappara. Espoo Blues travel to Turku to play TPS.
      There is considerable interest to see if teams will be temporarily strengthened by the import of star players from the NHL, which predictably began a lock-out on Wednesday after the complete breakdown of wage negotiations between the NHL teams and the Players' Association.
      The NHL season was scheduled to begin in October, but there are now fears that a sizeable part of the season will have to be scrapped. This could also have the knock-on effect of keeping NHL professionals out of the Torino Winter Olympics in 2006.
     
The Finnish League, founded in 1975, has been a closed series for the past four years, with no teams being relegated or winning promotion from lower divisions. However, that will end next autumn, when the doors will open to one team from Mestis, the 1st Division, thereby increasing the league to 14 teams.
      The candidate will be chosen not solely according to sporting criteria: the League's administrators insist that any new addition must also be financially viable.


Links:
  SM-Liiga (in Finnish)
  An online encyclopaedia entry of the Finnish Hockey League
  Finnish Ice Hockey Association (briefly in English)

Helsingin Sanomat