Ice hockey in Sweden

Often referred to by the nickname "Tre Kronor" (English: Three Crowns), the Swedish men's national ice hockey team is amongst the most successful in the world, being considered part of the Big Six. The team is, as of 2018, ranked first in the IIHF World Ranking.[8]

Sweden has won nine olympic medals, including gold medals in 1994 and 2006. They have also won the IIHF World Championships 11 times, most recently in 2018 in Denmark.[9]

Sweden's women's national team, nicknamed Damkronorna (English: Lady Crowns) as a play on the nickname of the men's team,[10] played their first official match in 1989, though they had been playing on an unofficial basis since 1987.[11][12] 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.[13]

The SHL (Swedish Hockey League or Svenska hockeyligan), founded in 1975 as Elitserien, is the highest level of men's ice hockey in Sweden, the second-most attended (in average attendance) sports league in Sweden (after Allsvenskan),[4] the third-most attended ice hockey league in Europe,[14] and as of 2006 is the fourth-highest paid hockey league in the world.[15]

HockeyAllsvenskan is the second tier of men's ice hockey, and has by far the highest average attendance of second-tier ice hockey leagues in Europe.

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.

All leagues in Swedish ice hockey after Hockeyettan are organized regionally. In most of the regions, there are two further divisions (Hockeytvåan and Hockeytrean), except for the eastern region which also has Hockeyfyran and Stockholm which also has Division 5.