's
Lars Erik Lundvall receiving the
Le Mat Trophy in 1965. Division 1 was founded in 1944, replacing
Svenska Serien as the top flight of Swedish ice hockey. From its foundation until the
1954–55 season, the league consisted of twelve teams, with group winners facing off in a best-of-three final, and with two teams from the bottom of each group being relegated. From the
1955–56 season, the best-of-three series was replaced with a double round-robin final round with the top two teams from each group. The league was expanded to two groups of eight for the
1956–57 season. The league would continue to have two groups of eight under a variety of different post-season formats until the
1974–75 season. With
Elitserien, a new top flight of Swedish hockey to begin play the following year, this final Division 1 season was played in a single group of 16, with the top eight teams going on to play in the new Elitserien, teams 9 and 10 playing (and winning) a northern and a southern qualifier, respectively, of four teams each, and the bottom six remaining in Division 1 in its new status as Sweden's second-tier league. Division 1 was a much broader league as the second tier, consisting of 49 teams in its inaugural season, eventually being reduced to ca. 40, and then 32 during its final second-tier season in
1998–99. During this entire period, the league was divided into four geographical groups, and operated a system of promotion and relegation with Elitserien and Division 2. Starting in the
1982–83 season, the top teams from each group formed a new group in the spring called Allsvenskan. For the
1999–2000 season, Allsvenskan was spun off into a new second-tier league, resulting in Division 1 becoming the third tier of Swedish hockey. Division 1's relegation to third-tier status resulted in a massive expansion in the number of teams. 78 teams participated in the
1999–2000 season, though this was reduced over the following seasons. Initially, the league was divided into four regions, all of which were further divided into two groups. By the
2004–05 season, Division 1 had been cut all the way down to 48 teams that were organized into four groups. The league expanded again to 54 teams the following season, and would be numbered in the fifties until 2014. In 2014, the league was rebranded Hockeyettan, and trimmed down to 48 teams competing in the current format with four starting groups of twelve that are then reorganized into 6 groups of eight in the spring. For the
first season under this format, the
Hockey Association decided to have only 11 teams in Hockeyettan North, giving a total of 47 teams. ==Notes==