SM-sarja is a common abbreviation for Suomen mestaruussarja, "Finnish Championship Series".

There was variable number of teams playing for the Finnish championship during the time of SM-sarja.

However, as ice hockey evolved in Finland some teams started to be handled like Businesses.

In the 1960s, two leading Finnish household machine factories UPO and Rosenlew established their own ice hockey teams, Upon Pallo and Rosenlewin Urheilijat-38.

By the 1970s the concept of amateur ice hockey was turning out of date as there was commercials on players uniforms and bigger money involved in teams and in 1975 SM-sarja played its last season and was replaced by SM-liiga (Finnish Championship League) for 1976 season.