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Hockeybilder: Swedish hockey cards from Alfa and Semic to SHL

Hockeybilder is the Swedish word for stickers with ice hockey motifs, and it has meant different things over the years: pictures that came with pastilles and sweets, stickers for albums and finally cards in standard size. Here are the Swedish series you may find in an old collection, how the league's change of name shows on the cards, and where the Swedish stars' rookie cards are.

Quick facts

What it is	Stickers and cards with ice hockey motifs
Early pictures	The Alfa pictures, with ice hockey players from 1956
Stickers	Williams and Semic from the late 1960s, Panini during the 1980s
Standard-size cards	Leaf and Upper Deck from the mid-1990s
SHL Elitset	The Card Cabinet, seasons 2002-03 to 2014-15
Official SHL cards	SportZoo, from the 2025/26 season
Swedish stars' rookie cards	In Upper Deck's NHL series, often as Young Guns

What hockeybilder are

The word is used for everything from the first small pictures to today's cards, and in everyday speech hockeybilder and hockey cards are the same thing. The format has still shifted. The earliest pictures came with a product you bought for something else. During the 1960s and 70s came series of pictures and stickers to collect in albums, and from the mid-1990s cards in the same size as the North American ones. Which kind you have decides how it should be stored, what is collected and what it may be worth.

The Alfa pictures

The Alfa pictures came with the pastille boxes Alfa Bobbykola and Alfa pastill. From 1949 they came as sports pictures, first with football players and from 1956 also with ice hockey players, and they were issued until the early 1960s. The pictures are small, and the same series issued pictures from the 1958 football World Cup in Sweden, which are described in the guide to the value of football cards.

Williams, Semic and Panini: the album years

From the late 1960s the publisher Williams issued hockey pictures with Swedish club teams and national teams, and around the 1970 World Championship in Stockholm came a series with both Swedish top-flight teams and the major national teams. During the 1970s stickers for albums followed. The comics publisher Semic, which also published Fantomen, took over as the main Swedish publisher with albums for Elitserien and for the World Championships, and during the 1980s Panini also issued Elitserien albums.

The albums from that time exist in two conditions: filled and loose stickers. Most stickers were stuck in, so loose, undamaged stickers of players who later became big are the unusual ones.

Leaf and Upper Deck: the cards of the 1990s

From the 1994-95 season came Swedish hockey cards in standard size. Leaf issued Elit Set for Elitserien for two seasons, and Upper Deck made Swedish series from 1995-96 and the years around the turn of the millennium, with their own subsets for the league's young players and stars. These are the cards where many of the Swedish NHL stars appear as young players in their Swedish clubs, several years before their first NHL card.

SHL Elitset

From the 2002-03 season up to and including 2014-15, The Card Cabinet issued SHL Elitset every season, with base cards, signed cards and separate series for the league's newcomers. The series spans the league's change of name.

From Elitserien to SHL

Elitserien started in autumn 1975, and the association behind it was named Svenska Hockeyligan in 1995. In June 2013 the league changed its name from Elitserien to SHL, with the 2013-14 season as the first under the new name. The abbreviation SHL still appeared on cards much earlier, in Upper Deck's subsets around 2000 and in SHL Elitset from 2002. A card marked SHL is therefore not certainly from after the change of name.

The SHL cards from SportZoo

After SHL Elitset more than ten years passed without Swedish league cards, until SportZoo issued its first SHL collection in the 2025/26 season. SportZoo comes from Bratislava in Slovakia and has made trading cards and stickers in Central Europe since 2016, and the company calls the cards the official collection of Svenska Hockeyligan.

The first season was split into Series 1, Series 2 and Playoffs. The cards follow the modern layout: a base set with players from all clubs, colour parallels numbered down to a single copy, signed cards at several levels and memorabilia cards with pieces of match jerseys and other equipment, including skate laces and sticks. How the parallels and numbering work is explained in the guide to parallels and numbered cards.

Swedish players in the NHL cards

The Swedish stars' rookie cards are in the North American series, and they are counted from their first season in the NHL. Upper Deck has long held the NHL licence, and the rookie cards in the base Series 1 and 2 are called Young Guns. Rasmus Dahlin and Elias Pettersson both had their Young Guns in Upper Deck Series 1 in the 2018-19 season. Further back, Börje Salming's first NHL card is in O-Pee-Chee and Topps in the 1974-75 season.

Many of the stars therefore have earlier cards in Swedish series. Mats Sundin appears in Semic's Elitserien album 1989-90, long before his first NHL card, and the Sedin twins in Upper Deck's Swedish series 1997-98. Such a card is not a rookie card in the collectors' sense, but it is often the player's earliest. More in the guide to rookie cards.

What makes a hockey picture valuable

The player. Swedish stars who have had big careers, especially in the NHL, carry most of the value.
That the picture is early. The first picture of a player who later became big is the one in demand.
The condition. Loose stickers and cards with sharp corners and no marks are unusual.
The print run on modern cards. Signed, numbered and memorabilia cards are the rare ones.
That the collection is complete. A complete album or set in fine condition is more sought after than loose parts.

Common misunderstandings

That SHL on a card means it is from after 2013. The abbreviation was used on cards much earlier.
That Elitserien existed in the 1960s. The league started in 1975, and before that the top division was called division 1.
That a player's first Swedish card is his rookie card. The rookie card is counted from the NHL debut.
That SportZoo is a Swedish company. It is Slovak.
That all hockeybilder are cards. Many are stickers or album pictures.

Frequently asked questions

What are hockeybilder worth? Most of them little. Early pictures of great Swedish players in fine condition are the exception. See the guide to what a card is worth.
Are there official SHL cards? Yes, SportZoo issues cards for SHL from the 2025/26 season.
Do Swedish stars have cards from before the NHL? Yes. Mats Sundin appears in Semic's Elitserien album 1989-90 and the Sedin twins in Upper Deck's Swedish series 1997-98, before their first NHL cards.
Are Young Guns Swedish cards? No, they are the rookie part of Upper Deck's NHL series, but many Swedish players appear there.
How do I store old hockeybilder? Loose pictures in pockets or sleeves, and albums lying flat and dry. See the guide to storing your collection.