Swedish Women's Hockey League

Swedish Women's Hockey League (Swedish: Svenska damhockeyligan)
Sport	Ice hockey
Founded	2007
Claim to fame	Top tier of women's ice hockey in Sweden
Inaugural season	2007–08
No. of teams	10
Country(ies)	Sweden
Most recent champion(s)	Luleå HF/MSSK (3rd title)
Most championship(s)	Segeltorps IF & Luleå HF/MSSK (3 titles each)
TV partner(s)	C More Sport, SVT
Official website	sdhl.se/
Related competitions	Swedish Hockey League

The Swedish Women's Hockey League (Swedish: Svenska damhockeyligan (SDHL), previously Riksserien) is the elite league for women's ice hockey in Sweden. It was established in 2007 by the Swedish Ice Hockey Association and has ten teams.

The league decided to change its name from Riksserien to the Swedish Women's Hockey League prior to the 2016–17 season.

Format

When a game is tied after regulation, a sudden death overtime 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, with each team playing twice at home and twice away against every other team, resulting in a 28-game regular season per team. After the regular season, the top six teams qualify for the Women's Swedish Championship playoffs (Swedish: SM-slutspel damer). The two teams with the best regular season records in Riksserien 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 Riksserien against challengers from Damettan.

Current clubs (2020-21)

From the formation of the SDHL in 2007, Luleå HF/MSSK and Segletorps IF have been the most successful clubs, both winning three Swedish Championships. Luleå has been the most successful regular season team, finishing on top of the league four times. Modo Hockey was the first team from outside the Stockholm area to win the championship with their victory in 2012.

Team	City	Arena	Capacity
AIK	Solna, Stockholm	Ulriksdals Ishall
Brynäs IF	Gävle	Monitor ERP Arena	7,909
Djurgårdens IF	Stockholm	Hovet	8,094
Göteborg HC	Gothenburg	Angered arena
HV71	Jönköping	Kinnarps Arena	7,000
Leksands IF	Leksand	Tegera Arena	7,650
Linköping HC	Linköping	Stångebro Ishall	8,500
Luleå HF/MSSK	Luleå	Coop Norrbotten Arena	6,300
Modo Hockey	Örnsköldsvik	Fjällräven Center	7,600
SDE Hockey	Danderyd, Stockholm	Enebybergs Ishall

Previous Winners

Previous SDHL regular season winners

2008 – AIK IF 2009 – Segeltorps IF 2010 – Segeltorps IF 2011 – Segeltorps IF 2012 – Brynäs IF 2013 – MODO Hockey 2014 – MODO Hockey

2015 – Linköping HC 2016 – Luleå HF/MSSK 2017 – Luleå HF/MSSK 2018 – Luleå HF/MSSK 2019 – Luleå HF/MSSK 2020 – HV71

Previous SDHL playoff winners (Swedish champions)

2008 – Segeltorps IF 2009 – AIK IF 2010 – Segeltorps IF 2011 – Segeltorps IF 2012 – MODO Hockey 2013 – AIK IF 2014 – Linköping HC

2015 – Linköping HC 2016 – Luleå HF/MSSK 2017 – Djurgårdens IF 2018 – Luleå HF/MSSK 2019 – Luleå HF/MSSK 2020 – Not held due to COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden

See also

• Women's ice hockey in Sweden

External links

• League website