Close Race At The Top Highlights Start Of Finland's Newly Rebranded Auroraliiga

Finland's top league, known in recent seasons as Naisten Liiga, has rebranded to be known as the Auroraliiga. The league has already played a month of their season with a trio of teams fighting for top spot in Kiekko-Espoo, Ilves, and HPK.

The league rebrand was done to get rid of the gender identifier "Naisten" in a move to place Auroraliiga as an equal counterpart to Finland's top men's league.

"Updating the name and brand is the result of long consideration and hard work, as well as an important symbolic act - it is high time to play hockey without prefixes," Auroraliiga director Henni Laaksonen said in a translated press release . "However, a name change alone is not enough. The change requires long-term work to achieve our goals."

In recent seasons, Naisten Liiga had fallen drastically behind Sweden's top league, and lost significant talent this year to both Switzerland and Sweden. The rebrand and new commitment to development in the league will aim to reverse the fate of the league, and begin growing women's hockey in Finland.

Through the first month of the season Kiekko-Espoo, Ilves, and HPK have emerged as the league's top teams this season. Auroraliiga lost the bulk of their top 10 scorers from the 2023-2024 season to higher level leagues with leading scorer Michaela Pejslova heading to Switzerland and second leading scorer Sanni Vanhanen heading to Sweden. Others from the top 10 including Julia Liikala (Switzerland), Clara Rozier (Switzerland), Elisa Holopainen (Sweden), and Julia Schalin (NCAA) also found new homes.

Currently topping the Auroraliiga scoring charts are Lisette Taks, Emma Nuutinen, and Julia Matejkova.

View the original article to see embedded media.

.