Finland lags behind Sweden in women’s hockey – worried coaches demand action: “The players should not have to pay to play”

Matilda Nilsson is one of many who left Finland to be able to play ice hockey professionally. In order for the domestic women’s league to be able to compete with the Swedish one in the future, an active role is now required from the men’s clubs.

Matilda Nilsson’s move from HIFK in the domestic hockey league to Brynäs in the Swedish SDHL was successful. In Sweden, she found what she missed in Finland – a professional environment where the branch she loves is also appreciated by those around her.

– This is the kind of environment I dreamed of when I was a little girl. It’s Sweden or the USA that applies as a women’s player if you want to be really professional and have it as a job, Nilsson tells Sportliv, who meets the 26-year-old in her new hometown of Gävle.

Matilda Nilsson talks in Sportliv about her professional hockey everyday in Sweden:

Nilsson had a fine first season in Brynäs where she averaged one point per game. The team went all the way to the final, where since Luleå was stronger.

Despite the fact that Nilsson was 17th in the SDHL’s scorers, she did not place Finland’s squad in the WC in Canada. Most of the leading players play everyday in Sweden or the USA.

The Finnish women’s league is an amateur series. It does train players for the foreign professional rinks, but otherwise it develops at a very slow pace.

Mira Kuisma, who is the coach of Finland’s U18 national team and the league team Team Kuortane, is concerned about the age structure of the series.

– Our team in Team Kuortane mainly consists of 16-19-year-old players, and unfortunately the age structure is the same in many other league teams. It shows in the level of the game. In the past, I have thought that the level and pace have progressed, but this year it didn’t feel like that.

HIFK’s champion coach Saara Niemi highlights her own team and HPK as clubs that have made progress by making playing free for their players. But the road to professionalism is still long.

– I hope we move towards that, because Sweden and now Switzerland also have professional leagues where they can offer their players a monthly salary and housing benefits. We won’t be able to keep the best players in Finland, but in the long run it would be nice if even some would return home at some stage.

In Sweden, Matilda Nilsson has for the first time been paid to play ice hockey. As long as she wants to invest 100%, returning to Finland is not a realistic option.

– The Finnish women’s league has not been so stable. The biggest problem is that there is a lack of money.

What could be done to reverse the trend? The easiest way could be to look west and take a model of what has been done in Sweden.

Lack of money

In Finland, the women’s league is far from professional. In two clubs, HIFK and HPK, the players do not have to pay to play. HIFK is also able to offer the team’s foreign reinforcements a car and a home.

HIFK coach Niemi states that she hopes the women’s team in Finland could eventually start paying salaries to their best players.

– But for everyone to get paid, we have a long way to go. The first step is that the players should not have to pay to play, she says.

In Brynäs, Matilda Nilsson has had to get used to greater attention. Many people recognize her on the street or in the shop in Gävle.

Women’s hockey has a higher status in Sweden and is also seen significantly more on television as SVT and C More broadcast SDHL matches.

Greater television visibility could also lift the FM league and Mira Kuisma further says that the Finnish teams should get better at using social media. At the same time, she points out that women’s hockey in Finland from the very beginning operates in a different environment than the one that prevails in Sweden.

– You have to remember that the sports policy in Sweden is different from the one here at home. There, the men’s team is not a limited company. Society in general has also been more ready to accept the ladies in top sports, says the junior national team pilot.

She believes that the joint-stock companies behind the men’s FM league team would have to make financial investments to get the ladies involved. Will is required.

Collaboration with the gentlemen

In Brynäs, the cooperation between the women’s and men’s teams is on a different level than what you find in Finland. The teams play their matches in the same hall, train mainly under the same roof and share the same gym.

The women’s and men’s players often participate together in various events. The players have put on joint charity stunts and organized a joint Christmas lunch. Matilda Nilsson had not experienced that in Finland in KalPa or HIFK.

In Brynäs, they have actively improved the women’s team’s conditions, which has been facilitated by the fact that three out of seven members of the club’s board are women – a gender distribution that is difficult or even impossible to find in Finnish hockey club boards.

– In Sweden, they have been several steps ahead of Finland on several fronts, not only in sports. But you should definitely go more in this direction in Finland as well, and the league teams should take responsibility for that, Saara Niemi believes.

The decisive league final against Kiekko-Espoo was played by HIFK in Helsinki’s ice rink and gathered 1,400 people in the stands – a dazzling figure compared to the league’s average of less than a hundred spectators per game.

– The final brought something to the club’s coffers. But that’s what normal everyday life should look like. Then women’s hockey would be able to support itself, says Niemi.

– In Sweden, the decision has been made that all women’s clubs are linked with the men’s clubs, and then you have opportunities to offer the players much more than here.

Continued international success possible without better FM league?

So far, Finnish women’s hockey has fared well in international comparison and over the years Finland has been by far the best European nation. Despite last year’s bottom with an exit already in the quarter-finals. By comparison, Sweden has won two WC bronzes against Finland’s thirteen bronzes and one silver.

In the U18 WC in January, Matilda Nilsson was able to follow along from her home sofa when her teammates in Brynäs helped Sweden to a 6–1 victory over Finland. The junior crowns claimed the silver medals, while Finland finished fourth.

– It is a fact that the level of the Swedish series is better than the Finnish one. But there are many foreign players who take playing time from young Swedish players. It is a challenge for them, believes Mira Kuisma.

Saara Niemi would like to see that in Finland, instead of investing so heavily in the activities of the women’s national team, they would put more effort into developing the league as well. Although 14 of the 24 players in this year’s WC squad are based in Sweden or the USA, all received their hockey upbringing in Finland and played in the women’s league.

– The better the clubs and the women’s league feel, the more and better players we get, says HIFK’s gold coach.

– It is not a negative thing if someone wants to play abroad, but when we think about the five to ten year perspective, we should really invest in the domestic series to make sure that its competitiveness grows. Or even kept intact.