Ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

has a history going back to at least 1912 and is one of the country's most popular sports. The sport was first organized in the country by the

Swedish Football Association The Swedish Football Association ( sv, Svenska Fotbollförbundet, SvFF) is the governing and body of football in Sweden. It organises the football leagues – Allsvenskan for men and Damallsvenskan for women – and the men's and women's nati ...

(SvFF), which was a member of the

IIHF The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; french: Fédération internationale de hockey sur glace; german: Internationale Eishockey-Föderation) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 83 m ...

in 1912. The ice hockey department of the SvFF eventually split off to become the

Swedish Ice Hockey Association The Swedish Ice Hockey Association ( sv, Svenska Ishockeyförbundet (SIF)) in Swedish, is an association of Swedish ice hockey clubs. It was established in Stockholm on 17 November 1922 by representatives from seven clubs. Before then, organized ...

(SIHA) which today is still responsible for organizing Sweden's domestic leagues and its participation in tournaments internationally. The highest tier of men's ice hockey in Sweden, the SHL, brought in 1,974,388 spectators in the 2013–14 season, the highest overall attendance in Swedish sports. The SHL's average of 5,983 spectators per match is bested only by

Allsvenskan Allsvenskan (; en, the All-Swedish, also known as Fotbollsallsvenskan, en, the Football All-Swedish) is a Swedish professional league for men's association football clubs. It was founded in 1924 and is the top tier of the Swedish football lea ...

, the country's top flight of

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

. The first recorded official ice hockey game on Swedish soil was played at

Stockholm Stadium Stockholm Olympic Stadium ( sv, Stockholms Olympiastadion), most often called Stockholms stadion or (especially locally) simply Stadion, is a stadium in Stockholm, Sweden. Designed by architect Torben Grut, it was opened in 1912; its original u ...

on 30 January 1921 when

IFK Uppsala IFK Uppsala is a Swedish sports club located in Uppsala in Sweden, with several departments: * IFK Uppsala Fotboll, association football department * IFK Uppsala Bandy, bandy department The club was established in 1895. On 30 January 1921, t ...

defeated Berliner SC, 4–1.

National teams

Men's

Often referred to by the nickname "Tre Kronor" (English: ''Three Crowns''), the Swedish men's national ice hockey team is amongst the most successful in the world, being considered part of the Big Six. The team is, as of 2018, ranked first in the

IIHF World Ranking The IIHF World Ranking is a ranking of the performance of the national ice hockey teams of member countries of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). It is based on a formula giving points for each team's placings at IIHF-sanctioned tour ...

. Sweden has won nine olympic medals, including gold medals in 1994 and 2006. They have also won the

IIHF World Championships The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). First officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics, it is the sport's highest profile annual ...

11 times, most recently in

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

Women's

Sweden's women's national team, nicknamed Damkronorna (English: ''The Lady Crowns'') as a play on the nickname of the men's team, played their first official match in 1989, though they had been playing on an unofficial basis since 1987. In the five Olympics that have featured women's ice hockey, the team has finished with a medal twice, bronze in 2002 and silver in 2010. They finished fourth in the 2014 Olympics. As of the 2018 April IIHF World Ranking, Damkronorna were ranked sixth in the world.

Men's leagues

SHL

The SHL (Swedish Hockey League or ''Svenska hockeyligan''), founded in 1975 as Elitserien, is the highest level of men's ice hockey in Sweden, the second-most attended (in average attendance) sports league in Sweden (after

), the third-most attended ice hockey league in Europe, and as of 2006 is the fourth-highest paid hockey league in the world.

HockeyAllsvenskan

HockeyAllsvenskan HockeyAllsvenskan (previously Allsvenskan and SuperAllsvenskan) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league, and the second-highest league in the Sweden, Swedish ice hockey system (after the Swedish Hockey League, SHL). Since the 2009–10 ...

is the second tier of men's ice hockey, and has by far the highest average attendance of second-tier ice hockey leagues in Europe.

Hockeyettan

Hockeyettan Hockeyettan is the third tier of ice hockey in Sweden. As of the 2015–16 Hockeyettan season, 2015–16 season, the league consists of 46 teams divided geographically into four groups. Hockeyettan operates a system of promotion and relegation w ...

, teams do not compete nationally, but rather break into four divisions/groups organized geographically. These smaller divisions play half a season together, after which the more successful teams in the four divisions join two new groups, organized geographically into "Allettan North" and "Allettan South", and play the rest of the season in the new groups. Meanwhile, the teams in the four beginning groups that did not qualify for Allettan continue playing in the original groups, with the poorest performing teams being forced to defend their spots against the winning teams from Division 2 in the qualification tournament known as

Kvalserien Kvalserien, also known as ''Kvalserien till SHL'', was the Swedish round-robin ice hockey tournament to qualify for play in the next season of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL, previously named Elitserien), Sweden's top-level ice hockey league fo ...

. The two Allettan winners battle for a direct spot in the Kvalserien for HockeyAllsvenskan in a series known as Hockeyettanfinalen. The teams ranked 2–9 in each Allettan group, the loser of Hockeyettanfinalen and the winners of the continuation groups qualify for a three-round playoff where the final three remaining teams qualify for the same Kvalserien. These four teams are joined by the two worst

teams to battle for two spots in the following HockeyAllsvenskan season.

Tiers 4–7

All leagues in Swedish ice hockey after Hockeyettan are organized regionally. There is

Hockeytvåan Hockeytvåan is the fourth tier of ice hockey in Sweden. It previously operated as the second-level league from 1941 to 1975, and the third-level league from 1975 to 1999. Format The league is divided into 11 regional groups. The top teams in D ...

, the fourth tier. Most regions also have Hockeytrean. The eastern region also has Hockeyfyran.

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

also has a seventh division, Division 5, and has also briefly had an eighth, Division 6.

Women's leagues

The highest women's ice hockey league is

Swedish Women's Hockey League The Swedish Women's Hockey League ( sv, Svenska damhockeyligan), abbreviated SDHL, is the elite league for women's ice hockey in Sweden. It was established in 2007 as the by the Swedish Ice Hockey Association and was renamed prior to the 2016– ...

, which has eight teams. Lower leagues are

Damettan DamEttan (called Division 1, 2007–2015) is the second-highest women's ice hockey league in Sweden, below the SDHL and above Damtvåan. Beginning with the first official women's ice hockey Swedish Championship in 1988, the league served as th ...

and Damtvåan.

References

{{Ice hockey in Sweden