1- Do teams finishing bottom of the table relegate after season? If not why...
2- How r the points counted, is it like in Football 3 for win, 1 for draw and 0 for loss?
Thanx
SM-liiga- Few questions
Re: SM-liiga- Few questions
1. I asked a friend this the other day while watching a game in a pub. He claimed it was because SM-Liiga is a corporation of some sort and not directly owned by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association. Each team, or franchise, therefore has contracts with SM-Liiga. According to the wiki article he was right.
'Since the 2000–01 season, the SM-liiga has been closed, meaning that relegations and promotions take place only by the judgment of the board of the SM-liiga. The only such promotion took place instantly in 2000.'
'The SM-liiga formerly had a system of automatic promotion and relegation in place between itself and the Mestis, the second highest level of competition in Finland, but the automatic system was ended in 2000. The league was opened in 2005 and allowed KalPa to get a promotion. In 2009 a new system was introduced and it includes the last placed SM-liiga team facing the Mestis champion in a best of seven playout series.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-liiga
A lot of the teams in the SM-Liiga have lower affiliate teams in the Mestis (eg. Jyp has D-Team, KalPa has SaPKo) also so there's no point of them rising to SM-Liiga. My friend also said (and understandably so) that the teams in SM-Liiga have a lot money compared to teams in Mestis so it would be quite difficult for them to rise and compete at the same level. Last year I recall Sport (Vaasa), the 08/09 Mestis champions, were extremely close to being promoted after a 7 game series with Ässät (Pori). They required only one more goal in the final game but couldn't score.
2. An outright win gains 3 points, a win in overtime gets 2 points, a loss in overtime gets 1 point and an outright loss gets 0 points.
'Since the 2000–01 season, the SM-liiga has been closed, meaning that relegations and promotions take place only by the judgment of the board of the SM-liiga. The only such promotion took place instantly in 2000.'
'The SM-liiga formerly had a system of automatic promotion and relegation in place between itself and the Mestis, the second highest level of competition in Finland, but the automatic system was ended in 2000. The league was opened in 2005 and allowed KalPa to get a promotion. In 2009 a new system was introduced and it includes the last placed SM-liiga team facing the Mestis champion in a best of seven playout series.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-liiga
A lot of the teams in the SM-Liiga have lower affiliate teams in the Mestis (eg. Jyp has D-Team, KalPa has SaPKo) also so there's no point of them rising to SM-Liiga. My friend also said (and understandably so) that the teams in SM-Liiga have a lot money compared to teams in Mestis so it would be quite difficult for them to rise and compete at the same level. Last year I recall Sport (Vaasa), the 08/09 Mestis champions, were extremely close to being promoted after a 7 game series with Ässät (Pori). They required only one more goal in the final game but couldn't score.
2. An outright win gains 3 points, a win in overtime gets 2 points, a loss in overtime gets 1 point and an outright loss gets 0 points.

Re: SM-liiga- Few questions
In addition to what Stewy wrote (and copied), I think there IS a financial criterion to be met. I seem to recall a case not a million years ago when there were worries about a team that was threatening to go up, but which did not have the financial wherewithal to do it - i.e. could not pay the subscription.
This confirms it:
Karsinnat selvittäneen Mestis-joukkueen olisi kuitenkin pitänyt ostaa hävinneen liigajoukkueen osake liigan määrittelemällä hinnalla edellytyksenä nousulle. Muussa tapauksessa hävinnyt liigajoukkue olisi jatkanut pelaamista liigassa seuraavallakin kaudella.
In other words, the winner of the promotion/relegation play-off (assuming it is the team from Mestis, the equivalent of "the Championship" in English football) would need to buy out the share held by the losing SM-Liiga side for a fee set by the League, in order to qualify for promotion. In the event that they cannot or do not wish to stump up this sum, then the losing play-off team (i.e. in this case the bottom-placed team in the SM-Liiga) remains in the League.
In effect it is a curious "mirror image" of the fat consolation-prize payouts given in compensation to teams who drop from the English Premiership, in order to make up for the massive losses they will suffer in lost TV revenue by not being in the Premiership.
This confirms it:
Karsinnat selvittäneen Mestis-joukkueen olisi kuitenkin pitänyt ostaa hävinneen liigajoukkueen osake liigan määrittelemällä hinnalla edellytyksenä nousulle. Muussa tapauksessa hävinnyt liigajoukkue olisi jatkanut pelaamista liigassa seuraavallakin kaudella.
In other words, the winner of the promotion/relegation play-off (assuming it is the team from Mestis, the equivalent of "the Championship" in English football) would need to buy out the share held by the losing SM-Liiga side for a fee set by the League, in order to qualify for promotion. In the event that they cannot or do not wish to stump up this sum, then the losing play-off team (i.e. in this case the bottom-placed team in the SM-Liiga) remains in the League.
In effect it is a curious "mirror image" of the fat consolation-prize payouts given in compensation to teams who drop from the English Premiership, in order to make up for the massive losses they will suffer in lost TV revenue by not being in the Premiership.