Hockey|The biggest clubs in the SM league are establishing their own league. In Kalervo Kummola’s opinion, an agreement between different parties should be found, as was finally found 50 years ago.
Contemporary the hockey SM league is on the verge of breaking up. The lawyer of the former chairman of Tappara Heikki Penttilän led by the reform project became public for the first time on Monday.
In the announcement he sent, Penttilä says that he has invited several clubs to the negotiations. According to the plan, 10–12 teams would initially play in the new series. According to the release, it is possible that the series could start as early as autumn 2026.
The most iconic leader of Finnish ice hockey Kalervo Kummola takes a thoughtful approach to the matter.
“I would say that it would be really unfortunate if an agreement could not be found. But I kind of understand both parties,” says Kummola, referring to the big clubs willing to change and the current SM league.
Major clubs the core of the willingness to change is known to be in the tough decision-making and change-making process of the 16-team SM league.
SM-liigaa is a joint-stock company owned by its shareholder clubs, where major changes require the approval of a two-thirds majority.
This is how attempts to reduce the number of teams and reform league systems, for example, have encountered resistance from small clubs.
No one really wants to voluntarily give up the advantages they have achieved – i.e. a place in the major league and, for example, the TV and playoff money that makes it possible.
SM liiga became a limited company in 2000, when the shareholders’ agreement was also drawn up.
“I’ve never understood the entire shareholders’ agreement. Why did SM league even have to be changed to a joint-stock company? And it was done secretly from the union,” says Kummola, who was the president of the Jääkieksoliitto between 1997 and 2016.
“The whole shareholder agreement thing has been a bit of a secret business, a closed circuit business. There is no limited company anywhere else in the world. Not even the NHL is a limited company,” he continues.
”
“Reducing the number of teams would at least be good in order to raise the level.”
HIFK and Ilves belong to the big clubs of the SM league, even though both of them are doing badly right now.
Penttilän the conglomerate is reportedly trying to build a series where power would lie with the series’ board of directors and its CEO instead of the shareholders’ meeting and agreement. That is, in NHL style, as if with the commissioner of the series.
“Reducing the number of teams would at least be good in order to raise the level,” Kummola commented.
“At the moment, there really aren’t any good teams at all. When in the series, the teams that are bet on tails in the fall are doing well. This situation is not really serving the teams at the moment.”
According to the release, the new series would be open, in which case promotion and relegation would be possible without obligations to redeem a share of the operating company.
Damn it was once at the center of everything when the SM league was founded in 1975. For the first 12 years of the series, he worked as its CEO.
At that time, the situation had many similarities to today. The top clubs, tired of the SM series under the Ice Hockey Federation, wanted their own league.
“Back then, the situation was such that we lived from hand to mouth, and there was no long-term commitment. The clubs wanted more control,” Kummola recalls.
“For a couple of years, there were quite a lot of arguments, but then the union also took a spoon in its beautiful hand and we finally made a solution together.”
“Yes, in the end, an agreement should always be found. Just like it was found 50 years ago,” says Kummola.
Kummola emphasizes that without the approval of the Ice Hockey Association, the implementation of the new series would be almost impossible.
“Because the association and the international association handle all player transfers and also national team activities,” says Kummola.
Also, the current SM league is not a league under the Jääkieksliitto, but it has an agreement with the association.
SM league the general meeting is scheduled to be held at the end of November. If ten clubs are behind the changes at that time, the system of the current series, shareholder agreements and other issues that cause discord can be changed as the big clubs want.
Thus, there might not even be a need to establish a completely new, parallel series, but changes could be made to the current SM league.