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2024–25 SM-liiga
2024–25 SM-liiga
	Liiga's 50th anniversary logo
League	Liiga
Sport	Ice hockey
Defending champions	Tappara (2023–24)
Duration	September 2024 – April 2025
Number of games	60
Number of teams	16
TV partner(s)	Telia; C More
Regular season
Playoffs
Liiga seasons
	← 2023–24

The 2024–25 Liiga season is the 50th season of the Liiga, the top level of Finnish ice hockey since 1975.

The Liiga expanded to 16 teams for the season with the addition of Kiekko-Espoo. The league also brought back the relegation to the Mestis and a reformed playoff system and new divisions that decide the number of games teams play against each other.^[1]^[2]

Format

The regular season starts in September 2024. As in previous seasons, 450 matches will be played in the regular season, 60 for each team and all teams are divided into four groups.^[1]^[2]

As usual, the series is on break in November for a week and a half while the national teams play in the Euro Hockey Tour. The Christmas break lasts 5–7 days, depending on the team, with the exception of Kärpät, which participates on the 26th–31 December in the Spengler Cup in Switzerland.^[3] For other teams, the Christmas break ends on Saint Stephen's day, 26 December. The regular season ends in April 2025.

Two outdoor games will be played in Pori between the rivals Porin Ässät and Rauman Lukko in January 2025. The games go by the name Satakunnan Talviklassikko or The Satakunta Winter Classic. The games are counted as normal regular season game. They will be played in the Amiko-areena [fi], which is normally used by the bandy club Narukerä. Temporary stands with a capacity of 9,000 spectators will be built for the two games.^[4]^[5]^[6]

Teams

Location of teams in 2024–25 SM-liiga

Team	City	Head coach	Arena	Capacity	Captain
HIFK	Helsinki	Ville Peltonen	Helsingin jäähalli	8,200
HPK	Hämeenlinna	~~Matias Lehtonen~~23 Sep 2024^[7] Mikko Manner	Pohjantähti Areena	5,360
Ilves	Tampere	Tommi Niemelä	Nokia Arena	12,700
Jukurit	Mikkeli	Marko Tuomainen	Ikioma Areena	4,200
JYP	Jyväskylä	Johan Pennerborn	LähiTapiola Areena	4,437
KalPa	Kuopio	Petri Karjalainen	Olvi Areena	5,300
Kiekko-Espoo	Espoo	Jyrki Aho	Espoo Metro Areena	6,982
KooKoo	Kouvola	Jouko Myrrä	Lumon Areena	5,950
Kärpät	Oulu	Ville Mäntymaa	Oulun Energia Areena	6,300
Lukko	Rauma	Tomi Lämsä	Kivikylän Areena	4,500
Pelicans	Lahti	Juhamatti Yli-Junnila	Isku Areena	4,403
SaiPa	Lappeenranta	Raimo Helminen	Lappeenrannan jäähalli	4,820
Sport	Vaasa	Juuso Hahl	Vaasan Sähkö Areena	5,185
Tappara	Tampere	Rikard Grönborg	Nokia Arena	12,700
TPS	Turku	Tommi Miettinen	Gatorade Center	10,500
Ässät	Pori	Jarno Pikkarainen	Enersense Areena	6,150	Jan-Mikael Järvinen

Regular season standings

Top four advance straight to the quarter-finals, while teams between 5th and 12th positions play a wild card round for the final four spots. The 15th and 16th placed teams play against each other to decide which team will play against the Mestis champion for a spot in the SM-liiga.^[a]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	OTW	OTL	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Final Result
1	SaiPa	34	18	3	3	10	105	85	+20	63	Advance to Quarterfinals
2	Tappara	34	16	5	3	10	109	86	+23	61
3	HIFK	35	15	5	6	9	106	103	+3	61
4	Kiekko-Espoo	34	14	7	4	9	100	91	+9	60
5	Ilves	32	17	3	1	11	97	82	+15	58	Advance to Wild-card round
6	Lukko	34	16	2	4	12	111	87	+24	56
7	Ässät	34	15	4	3	12	90	91	−1	56
8	KalPa	33	13	5	4	11	96	82	+14	53
9	Kärpät	36	12	5	6	13	112	117	−5	52
10	Sport	35	10	4	11	10	101	106	−5	49
11	KooKoo	35	9	9	2	15	104	106	−2	47
12	TPS	35	10	5	6	14	101	113	−12	46
13	HPK	34	10	3	7	14	81	107	−26	43
14	Pelicans	33	11	3	2	17	96	101	−5	41
15	JYP	32	10	2	6	14	85	107	−22	40	Advance to Playout round
16	Jukurit	34	7	4	1	22	80	110	−30	30	Advance to Playout round

Updated to match(es) played on 21 December 2024. Source: [1]

Broadcast rights

For the 2023–2024 season, Telia had transferred the television rights of the SM-liiga to MTV, which it owns. Telia had acquired the broadcast rights starting from the 2018–2019 season, and with the new agreement MTV has the rights until the end of the 2026–2027 season. MTV pays more than 90 million euros for television rights over four seasons, and the company has admitted that the operation is loss-making.^[8] The broadcasts are produced by MTV and during the season games can be seen live from C More, Discovery+, DNA, Elisa Viihde, MTV and Telia.^[9]