2022–23 season

Excepting the ten teams of the Naisten Liiga, all women's ice hockey teams competing at the national level began the season in the Naisten Mestis qualifiers (Finnish: karsinta). The Naisten Mestis qualifiers, which were contested during September to December 2022, involved eighteen teams divided into three groups of five to seven teams. In the closed groups, each team played every other team at least twice. The top eight teams at the end of the qualifiers continued in the Naisten Mestis and the remaining teams filled the ranks of the Naisten Suomi-sarja.^[1]

The top-two teams from the Naisten Suomi-sarja would join the eight Naisten Mestis teams for the 2023–23 season to fill all ten available slots.^[1]

2019–2022

Qualifiers

With the exception of the Naisten Liiga teams, all club representative teams started the season in the Naisten Mestis Qualifiers (Finnish: Karsinta). Each team was sorted into a group (Finnish: lohko) of five to eight teams; the number of groups was determined by the total number of teams competing and each group was loosely defined by geography, with proximate teams being sorted together. Each team played a total of fifteen or sixteen matches within their division. The points earned in those games determined the team's ranking within their division; victories earned three points, overtime victories earned two points, and overtime losses earned one point. Teams that ranked forth or lower in each division at the end of the qualifiers did not qualify to play in the Naisten Mestis and continued the season in the Naisten Suomi-sarja. The qualifying round ran from the beginning of the season in September to late November or early December.

Cross qualifiers

The team with the highest point total from each division of the qualifiers moved on the cross-qualifying round (Finnish: ristiinkarsinta). If there were an odd number of divisions, the second-placed team with the highest point total of all remaining teams also moved on. The cross qualifiers were a round-robin tournament, each team faced all other participating teams once. The two teams earning the highest point totals at the end of the tournament continued their seasons in the Lower Division (Finnish: Alempi jatkosarja) of the Naisten Liiga and had the opportunity to gain promotion to the Naisten Liiga for the following season. The teams ranked third and lower in the cross qualifiers continued the season in the Naisten Mestis regular season. The cross qualifying round was played in late November and/or early December.

Regular season

The teams ranked third and lower in the cross qualifiers and the teams that finished second or third in each division of the qualifiers filled the ranks of the Naisten Mestis regular season. If the number of divisions was odd, the third ranked team from the qualifiers with the smallest point total would not qualify and moved to the Naisten Suomi-sarja so that an even number of teams was maintained in the Naisten Mestis. Each team in the regular season played an equal number of games against each of the other teams. The regular season ran from January to March.