Ice hockey The SM league starts next week, and the atmosphere between HIFK and the Jokers, who are burning in the SM league, is getting hotter all the time.
HIFK supporter groups Stadin kings, Inferno 1897, HIFK Fan Club and Folket 1897 announced on Wednesday their intention to boycott HIFK’s first home derby against Jokeris. The match is scheduled for November 11.
IFK supporter groups already announced in July that they would boycott Joker’s first home match against IFK.
The reason for both boycotts is the high ticket prices. The price of tickets for the Jokers’ home match in the HIFK supporter’s stand was 75 euros.
Element say in the release that they expected that HIFK would not price the tickets for the match unreasonably high in their opinion.
Currently, the cheapest tickets for HIFK’s home match on Ticketmaster’s website cost 60 euros, and the most expensive normal tickets cost 160 euros. The cheapest child ticket is 33.50.
“We gave our own club the opportunity to react and show everyone that things can be done differently. However, this has not happened. A mere local match is not a sufficient reason for unreasonable ticket prices,” the announcement says.
“Pricing normalizes the idea that the ability to pay determines who owns the events. With the boycott, we want to show that this is not acceptable now and in the future.”
Jokers and HIFK will meet in the SM league for the first time this season on October 8 at Veikkaus-arena.
Joker’s supporters’ group EP06 ry has also announced that it will boycott the home derby. Another group of Joker supporters, Eteläpääty ry, is not boycotting the match, but has expressed concern about the ticket prices.
HIFK’s supporter groups said in connection with their boycott announcement in July that they only received a quota of 200 guest tickets from the Jokers, which might increase to 350 tickets.
The arena can accommodate 13,349 spectators.
Correction August 26, 2026 at 2:46 p.m.: In the story, it was initially wrongly claimed that the Jokers’ supporter group Eteläpääty ry boycotted the Jokers’ first home derby. In reality, Eteläpääty ry did not boycott the match, but another supporter group EP06 ry did.