Teams
Elitserien originated in 1975 with ten teams, and after expansion in 1987 currently consists of twelve teams. The two lowest ranked teams after the regular season have to play in a regulation series called Kvalserien together with four teams from the second tier league HockeyAllsvenskan. The top two teams of Kvalserien qualify for the next Elitserien season, while the other four are demoted to HockeyAllsvenskan. Theoretically, there is a possibility that two 'new' teams will play in Elitserien at the beginning of each season.
Counting from the start of Elitserien in 1975, Färjestad BK is the most successful team with nine Swedish Championship titles, commonly called SM-guld in Swedish. The second most successful team is Djurgårdens IF with six championship titles. Counting from 1922, when the first Swedish championships were played, Djurgårdens IF is the most successful team with sixteen championship titles, followed by Brynäs IF with twelve and IK Göta with nine.
The future of Elitserien has been uncertain, especially its relation to ice hockey in the rest of Europe. In 2009, Håkan Loob, the general manager of Färjestad BK, sent a letter to Alexander Medvedev, the owner and president of the Russian Kontinental Hockey League, on behalf of five Elitserien teams – Färjestad, Frölunda, Djurgården, Linköping and HV71 – that were reportedly "interested in discussing the future of European hockey". It was believed that these five teams had intended to leave the Elitserien league after the 2009–10 season; they terminated their shareholders' agreements with Hockeyligan, who governs the Elitserien league. However, this never happened, and the plans to unite with other European leagues were officially put down in November 2011.
There has also been extensive discussion about the amount of teams in the Elitserien. Currently the Elitserien league has 12 teams. However, there has been good agreement among hockey experts that the league needs to be expanded by at least two more teams. (The second tier league HockeyAllsvenskan currently has 14 teams.) They mean that, apart from just the economical situation for some of the clubs, the competition from HockeyAllsvenskan has shown that more teams are needed in the top-tier league Elitserien. Hockeyligan has stated that they are looking into ways of improving the Elitserien, including but not limited to an expansion of the league to 14 teams.
Read more about this topic: Elitserien
Famous quotes containing the word teams:
“A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)