Ice hockey in Sweden has a history going back to at least 1912 and is one of the country's most popular sports. The sport was first organized in the country by the Swedish Football Association, which was a member of the IIHF in 1912. The ice hockey department of the SvFF eventually split off to become the Swedish Ice Hockey Association which today is still responsible for organizing Sweden's domestic leagues and its participation in tournaments internationally. The highest tier of men's ice hockey in Sweden, the SHL, brought in 1,974,388 spectators in the 2013–14 season, the highest overall attendance in Swedish sports. The SHL's average of 5,983 spectators per match is bested only by Allsvenskan, the country's top flight of association football. The first recorded official ice hockey game at Swedish soil was played at the Stockholm Stadium on 30 January 1921 when IFK Uppsala defeated Berliner SC, 4–1.
Sweden's women's national team, nicknamed Damkronorna as a play on the nickname of the men's team, played their first official match in 1989, though they had been playing on an unofficial basis since 1987. In the five Olympics that have featured women's ice hockey, the team has finished with a medal twice, bronze in 2002 and silver in 2010. They finished fourth in the 2014 Olympics. As of the 2018 April IIHF World Ranking, Damkronorna were ranked sixth in the world.
Men's leagues
SHL
The SHL, founded in 1975 as Elitserien, is the highest level of men's ice hockey in Sweden, the second-most attended sports league in Sweden, the third-most attended ice hockey league in Europe, and as of 2006 is the fourth-highest paid hockey league in the world.
In Hockeyettan, teams do not compete nationally, but rather break into four divisions/groups organized geographically. These smaller divisions play half a season together, after which the more successful teams in the four divisions join two new groups, organized geographically into "Allettan North" and "Allettan South", and play the rest of the season in the new groups. Meanwhile, the teams in the four beginning groups that did not qualify for Allettan continue playing in the original groups, with the poorest performing teams being forced to defend their spots against the winning teams from Division 2 in the qualification tournament known as Kvalserien. The two Allettan winners battle for a direct spot in the Kvalserien for HockeyAllsvenskan in a series known as Hockeyettanfinalen. The teams ranked 2–9 in each Allettan group, the loser of Hockeyettanfinalen and the winners of the continuation groups qualify for a three-round playoff where the final three remaining teams qualify for the same Kvalserien. These four teams are joined by the two worst HockeyAllsvenskan teams to battle for two spots in the following HockeyAllsvenskan season.
Tiers 4–7
All leagues in Swedish ice hockey after Hockeyettan are organized regionally. In most of the regions, there are two further divisions, except for the eastern region which also has Hockeyfyran and Stockholm which also has Division 5.
