The evolution of the Finnish Liiga logo reflects the change in the name of the league. From 2013, SM-liiga started to be marketed as just Liiga, and therefore, adopted a new emblem.
Originally, the European Elite hockey league Liiga was known as SM-Liiga, short for Suomenmestaruus-Liiga meaning Finnish championship. SM-Liiga was founded in 1975 and replaced SM-Sarja, which was mainly an amateur league that had an agreement with the Finnish Ice Hockey Association Suomen Jääkiekkoliitto. For over ten years, the league had ten teams. Later, it was expanded to 12, then 13, and since 2015, there are 15 teams in the league. The best Liiga teams are able to participate in the Champions Hockey League as it is ranked fourth league in Europe.
This Liiga logo version does not impress with its appearance as it has typical elements for sports logos. At the same time, it looks well-designed and its simplicity makes it look great even a couple of decades later. The blue oval shape with a light gray border serves as the base. The logo has the name printed in two lines using italicized, bold, sans-serif letters. The inscription looks clean and easy to read. The name is accompanied by a drawing of a figure of an ice hockey player and an enlarged hockey puck across the name.
The centerpiece of the current logo is a black circle, which is presumably a hockey puck. Over the circle, the script “Liiga” is placed. It goes diagonally upwards. The end of the “G” stretches below the first three letters and forms a hockey stick.
The old SM-liiga logo had a completely different design. Here, a hockey player could be seen inside a blue ellipse with a 3D silver outline. The name of the league was given in large white letters.