Finnish SM-League

The SM-League is one of the strongest leagues outside the NHL. That is not a surprise since hockey is the biggest sport and national pastime in Finland. When the Finnish National Team won the World Championship in 1995, the whole country was celebrating for days.

1998 SM-League playoffs

HIFK wins the Finnish SM-League Finals against Ilves three games to none.

Finals
	HIFK - Ilves
Game 1	2 - 0
Game 2	7 - 1
Game 3	2 - 1
Game 4
Game 5
	HIFK wins series

Semifinals
	HIFK - K-Espoo	Ilves - Jokerit
Game 1	3 - 0	4 - 3
Game 2	7 - 3	4 - 2
Game 3	6 - 0	3 - 2
Game 4
Game 5
	HIFK wins series	Ilves wins series

Quarterfinals
	TPS - K-Espoo	HIFK - Assat	Ilves - SaiPa	Jokerit - Tappara
Game 1	5 - 1	5 - 4	10 - 2	6 - 3
Game 2	0 - 6	8 - 2	1 - 0	5 - 7
Game 3	1 - 4	6 - 3	5 - 1	3 - 1
Game 4	1 - 2
Game 5
	K-Espoo wins series	HIFK wins series	Ilves wins series	Jokerit wins series

SM-League standings: End of regular season

                      G   W   L   T   GF   GA   P
 1. TPS Turku        48  30  12   6  162 -111  66
 2. HIFK Helsinki    48  29  14   5  179 -115  63
 3. Ilves Tampere    48  27  15   6  184 -138  60
 4. Jokerit Helsinki 48  24  19   5  139 -137  53
 5. Tappara Tampere  48  22  19   7  157 -147  51
 6. SaiPa Lranta     48  21  20   7  135 -142  49
 7. Assat Pori       48  20  20   8  163 -156  48
 8. K-Espoo          48  20  22   6  153 -139  46
------------------------------------------------- 
 9. Lukko Rauma      48  20  22   6  131 -143  46
10. HPK Hämeenlinna  48  18  25   5  148 -181  41
11. JyP HT           48  17  28   3  135 -167  37
-------------------------------------------------
12. KalPa Kuopio     48   6  38   4   91 -201  16

Final Scoring Leaders
Player           Team    G  A  P
Peter Larsson    Ilves   19 39 58 
Jan Caloun       HIFK    22 26 48
Raimo Helminen   Ilves   12 36 48
Lasse Pirjetä    Tappara 24 22 46
Allan Measures   Ilves   19 25 44
Dale Mc Tavish   SaiPa   25 18 43
V. Fandul        Ässät   15 27 42
Mika Nieminen    Jokerit 16 25 41
Aleksandr Barkov Tappara 12 29 41
Kimmo Rintanen   TPS     17 23 40
Johan Davidsson  HIFK    10 30 40
Olli Jokinen     HIFK    11 28 39
Christian Ruuttu HIFK    11 28 39

Archive:
Finland gets Olympic bronze
Finland wins the World Junior title
Jokerit win 1997 SM-League championship

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