Finland's top league officially shuts down

Finland's top professional league, Liiga, has officially shut down their operations for the next three weeks due to escalating cases of COVID-19 in Finland.

From Liiga's official website translated from Finnish:

The coronavirus situation in Finland has deteriorated in recent weeks. Regional authorities have imposed stricter restrictions this week to prevent the virus from spreading. Due to the given audience restrictions, the Board of the Hockey Championship Oy today decided to pause the series for the period from December 3 to December 19, 2020.

“We have done a lot of work during the autumn to ensure the safety of the public, players and employees at match events, and we succeeded well in that work. Now, however, the viral situation has changed for the worse in several areas, so the limitations are understandable. However, it is not financially possible for us to play without the audience, comments Heikki Hiltunen, Chairman of the Board of the League

“We believe that the disease situation will be brought under control quickly with these measures and we will be able to continue the regular series. The intention is to continue to play the full regular season, he continues

All matches marked for play in the above time frame will be postponed. The league and teams will announce new match dates for the postponed matches later. If the current restrictions are lifted earlier or continued, the League will notify you of the possible consequences immediately.

NHL players like Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Jesse Puljujarvi and Jusso Valimaki had been playing the 2020-21 season in the league.