HIFK

Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna i Helsingfors (abbreviated HIFK) is a sports club from Helsinki, Finland. Formed in 1897 HIFK is the oldest IFK club in Finland. The club has activities in many sports, including football, ice hockey, bandy, floorball, handball, athletics and bowling.

Bandy

As of 2013, HIFK has won the Finnish Bandyliiga and has become Finnish bandy champions seventeen times, which is more than any other bandy club in Finland. The home games are played at Kallio Ice Rink.

Ice hockey

Today, HIFK is best known in Finland for its ice hockey section which runs a team in Finland's top-level competition, Liiga.

Football

The football section of HIFK was established in 1907, and its first team earned promotion to Veikkausliiga for the 2015 season.

References and Sources

HIFK Bandy

HIFK (Helsingfors Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna) Bandy are a bandy club from Helsinki, Finland. HIFK Bandy was founded in 1907 and it's one the oldest bandy clubs in Finland. HIFK are also the most successful bandy club with 17 championship titles. HIFK Bandy currently plays in Bandyliiga, the premier bandy league in Finland.

History

HIFK Bandy was formed in 1907 as a bandy section of HIFK sports club formed in 1897. HIFK competed in the very first Finnish bandy championships in the winter of 1908. The team fared well in the early years of the competition winning their first title in 1910 and then again in 1911, 1912 and 1913. In the 1930s HIFK were again in top form gathering 3 more titles within 10 years. During war years of Second world war the team grabbed the top position in 1941 and 1944, along with victories in the unofficial wartime league of 1940 and 1942.

After the war HIFK found themselves in a slump and were relegated from Bandyliiga and spent five years in the Suomisarja, a second-tier bandy league. By the 1970s, things were back in shape with the construction of Oulunkylä artificial ice rink which was used for training and HIFK grabbed the title again in 1978. During this time, HIFK developed a healthy rivalry with local Botnia-69 who they competed against in front of thousands of spectators who had come to watch the two teams from Helsinki clash. In the late 80s HIFK struck gold again, winning the title twice in 1988 and 1989. In the following years many older players retired and HIFK was forced to rebuild itself from the ground up.

HIFK Fotboll

HIFK Fotboll is an association football section of HIFK, a sports club from Helsinki, Finland. The men's football first team plays in Veikkausliiga and their home ground is at the Sonera Stadium.

History

Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna i Helsingfors was formed on 15 October in 1897 by Georges Doubitsky, a 15-year-old student at the Svenska Reallyceum school in Helsinki. In those early years the club specialised in athletics, football and bandy. The football section was established in 1907, the same year that the Football Association of Finland was founded. The first football match played HIFK was at the Kaisaniemi ground on 17 May 1908 where the new team lost 1–2 to Unitas.

In those early years HIFK were runners-up in the Mestaruussarja (then played as a cup competition) on 5 occasions in 1909, 1912, 1928 and 1929. In addition in 1912 the Finnish Football team at the Stockholm Olympics comprised a team of HIFK players.

HIFK won their first Finnish championship (Mestaruussarja) in 1930 a feat that they were to repeat on three other occasions in 1931, 1933 and 1937 in a tremendous decade for the club. HIFK also won the Mestaruussarja in 1947, 1959 and 1961. In total HIFK won the Finnish championship on 7 occasions.