The Swedish Women's Hockey League (), 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 2016–17 season. The league has ten teams and employs a system of

promotion and relegation Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

with the Nationella Damhockeyligan (NDHL). The unexpected withdrawal of Göteborg HC after playing only thirteen games of the 2022–23 season caused the number of teams to decrease to nine for the remainder of that season. Bodychecking was allowed for the 2022–23 season and goal cameras were introduced for the 2024–2025 season.

Format

When a game is tied after regulation, a sudden death

overtime Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways: *by custom (what is considered healthy or reasonable by society) ...

is played with only four skaters per team for maximum 10 minutes (or 20 minutes in the playoffs). If the game is still tied after overtime, the winner is decided by game winning shots. The regular season is a double

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

, with each team playing twice at home and twice away against every other team, resulting in a 36-game regular season per team. After the regular season, the top six teams qualify for the Women's Swedish Championship playoffs (). The two teams with the best regular season records in the SDHL are given a bye to the semifinals, with the remaining four qualified teams starting in the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinals, team 3 gets to pick their choice of opponent between teams 5 and 6, leaving the remaining club to meet team 4. In the semifinals the first ranked team chooses an opponent from the two winners of the quarterfinals. The playoffs are all best-of-three series, with the higher ranked team starting with one match away, followed by the remaining two at home. The two teams with the worst records in the regular season are forced to play a qualifier to defend their spots in the SDHL against challengers from the NDHL.

Teams

From the formation of the SDHL in 2007,

Luleå HF/MSSK Luleå Hockey/MSSK are a semi-professional ice hockey team in the Swedish Women's Hockey League (SDHL). They play in Luleå, a port city in northeastern Sweden, at Coop Norrbotten Arena. The team is the most successful in SDHL history, having b ...

have been the most successful club, winning six Swedish Championships. Luleå has been the most successful regular season team, finishing on top of the league six times.

MODO Hockey Modo Hockey (or MoDo with uppercase letters) is a professional ice hockey club in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. The team currently plays in Sweden's second-tier league HockeyAllsvenskan after losing to HV71 after the play out following the 2024/25 se ...

was the first team from outside the Stockholm area to win the championship with their victory in 2012.

2024–25 season

Sources:

Previous winners

Regular season champions

;Riksserien * 2008 – AIK Hockey * 2009 – Segeltorps IF * 2010 – Segeltorps IF * 2011 – Segeltorps IF * 2012 – Brynäs IF * 2013 –

* 2014 –

* 2015 – Linköping HC ;SDHL * 2016 –

* 2017 –

* 2018 –

* 2019 –

* 2020 – HV71 * 2021 –

* 2022 – Brynäs IF * 2023 –

* 2024 –

* 2025 –

Swedish Champions (playoff winners)

* 2008 – Segeltorps IF * 2009 – AIK Hockey Dam * 2010 – Segeltorps IF * 2011 – Segeltorps IF * 2012 –

Modo Hockey Modo Hockey (or MoDo with uppercase letters) is a professional ice hockey club in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. The team currently plays in Sweden's second-tier league HockeyAllsvenskan after losing to HV71 after the play out following the 2024/25 se ...

* 2013 – AIK Hockey Dam * 2014 – Linköping HC * 2015 – Linköping HC * 2016 –

* 2017 –

Djurgårdens IF Djurgårdens Idrottsförening, commonly known simply as Djurgårdens IF, Djurgården (), and (especially locally) Djurgår'n (), Dif or DIF – is a Swedish sports association with several sections, located in Stockholm. Djurgårdens IF is an s ...

* 2018 –

* 2019 –

* 2020 – ''Not held due to

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

'' * 2021 –

* 2022 –

* 2023 –

* 2024 –

* 2025 –

Frölunda HC Frölunda Hockey Club, previously known as the Frölunda Indians, is a Swedish professional ice hockey club based in Gothenburg. They currently play in the highest Swedish league, the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), formerly the Elitserien, where th ...

Attendance

While average attendance in the SDHL has been significantly lower than other professional leagues in Sweden and the

Premier Hockey Federation The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) was a women's professional ice hockey league in the United States and Canada that operated from March 2015 until June 2023. The league was established in 2015 as the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), com ...

in North America, attendance has tended towards increasing as the league receives greater investment and promotion, and as women's clubs have been less neglected by their parent organisations. There exists a considerable disparity in attendance between clubs, with

having led the league in attendance ever single year since the club's formation, often with almost ten time greater attendance than the worst attended club. Playoff attendance has also tended to be much higher than regular season attendance, averaging almost 900 per match in 2017–18 and 2018–19.

League records

Individual records

* Most goals in a season: Andrea Dalen, 47 goals (36 games, 2015–16) * Most assists in a season: Lara Stalder, 55 assists (33 games, 2021–22) * Most points in a season: Lara Stalder, 89 points (33 games, 2021–22) * Most points in a season, defenceman: Sidney Morin, 65 points (36 games, 2020–21) * Most penalty minutes in a season: Jenn Wakefield, 90 PIM (31 games, 2020–21) * Most shutouts in a season: Florence Schelling, 10 shutouts (31 games, 2017–18) * Best save percentage in a season, minimum 1/3 of games played: Kim Martin Hasson, .956 (17 games, 2014–15) * Beat goals against average in a season, minimum 1/3 of games played: Frida Axell, 1.00 GAA (14 games, 2022–23)

Club records

* Most points in a season: 99, HV71 in 2019–20 * Highest attendance in a regular season match: 6,220 –

vs. AIK Hockey, 16 November 2018 * Highest attendance in a playoff match: 7,765 – Brynäs IF vs. Luleå HF/MSSK at Monitor ERP Arena, 7 April 2022 (Game 5 of the 2022 Swedish Championship finals)

All-time leading scorers

The top-ten point-scorers (goals + assists) in SDHL history. Note: Nat = Nationality; Pos =

Position Position often refers to: * Position (geometry), the spatial location (rather than orientation) of an entity * Position, a job or occupation Position may also refer to: Games and recreation * Position (poker), location relative to the dealer * ...

; GP =

Games played Games played (GP) is a statistic used in team sports to indicate the total number of games in which a player has participated (in any capacity); the statistic is generally applied irrespective of whatever portion of the game is contested. Associat ...

; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts =

Points A point is a small dot or the sharp tip of something. Point or points may refer to: Mathematics * Point (geometry), an entity that has a location in space or on a plane, but has no extent; more generally, an element of some abstract topologica ...

; P/G =

Points per game Points per game, often abbreviated PPG, is the average number of points scored by a player or team per game played in a sport, over the course of a series of games, a whole season, or a career. It is calculated by dividing the total number of poi ...

Source:

References

External links

* {{Women's European Ice Hockey Leagues Swedish Women's Hockey League

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

Women's ice hockey competitions in Sweden 2008 establishments in Sweden Sports leagues established in 2008 Women's sports leagues in Sweden Professional ice hockey leagues in Sweden Women's ice hockey in Sweden