Elkjøp-ligaen 2026/27 (F)

Nineteen titles between 1994 and 2017, thirteen of them in a row: Larvik HK turned a small town in southern Norway into the centre of the country's handball and in 2011 won the Champions League, the first for a Norwegian club. Eight years later, on 14 May 2019, that same club lost its elite licence over its finances and dropped into 1. divisjon. It came back in 2020 and finished fourth last season.

Vipers Kristiansand took over, stringing together seven championships from 2017/18 to 2023/24 and winning three straight Champions League titles — 2021, 2022 and 2023 — which no Norwegian club had managed before. On 13 January 2025 it filed for bankruptcy halfway through the season: it withdrew from the league and from Europe, released every player and vanished. Kristiansand has no side in the top flight today, and the best in the region, Randesund, plays in the third division.

The competition has existed since 1967 and its name changes with whoever is paying: Hovedserien, 1. divisjon, Eliteserien, Gildeserien, Postenligaen, GRUNDIGligaen, REMA 1000-ligaen. On 27 May 2026, in the Drammenshallen and minutes before the final, the federation announced the eighth: Elkjøp-ligaen.

Twenty-five wins, no draws and a single defeat in twenty-six rounds: 30-27 at Molde on 21 December. On that record Sola sealed the first league title in the club's history on 26 March, two rounds early, beating Byåsen 27-18 in Trondheim. It closed on 50 points, against Storhamar's 45, Molde's 40 and Larvik's 37. Both head-to-heads went its way too: 32-29 at the Åsenhallen and 29-27 in Hamar.

And still it did not lift the bigger trophy. Norway crowns two champions a year — the seriemester, who tops the table, and the winner of the sluttspill — and in May Storhamar took the second. It swept Fredrikstad and Larvik without dropping a game and reached a best-of-three final in which the away side won every time: 29-31 at Sola on 22 May, 26-29 in Hamar on the 28th and 23-28 back at the Åsenhallen on the 31st. Anniken Obaidli scored six in the decider.

At the other end, Romerike Ravens finished on 5 points out of a possible 52 and Haslum lost the qualifier to Utleira, who won 28-24 and 33-20.

On Wednesday 26 August Storhamar host Gjerpen in a match brought forward; the full opening round waits until Sunday the 30th. Two newcomers arrive with it: Flint of Tønsberg, champions of 1. divisjon, and Utleira, who have never played in the top flight and open against Byåsen, the other club in Trondheim.

Storhamar and Sola start as the two to beat, and neither is quite what it looks like. Storhamar won their first Norwegian championship in 2024/25 and did it without losing a single match — league, cup and sluttspill — a year after becoming the first club in the country to lift the European League. Sola arrive with Camilla Herrem, an Olympic champion, as captain, and with an arena that seats 1,200. Behind them wait Molde and a Larvik settled among the top four again.

What is gone is the club that used to rule. With Vipers wound up, the league's two Champions League places go to Storhamar and Sola, and three European League places to Molde, Larvik and Tertnes. The calendar breaks between 22 November and 30 December for the international window, with Norway's internationals spread around these dressing rooms: Malin Aune and Eli Marie Raasok in Hamar, Selma Henriksen alongside Herrem at Sola.

Twenty-six rounds, a hundred and eighty-two matches and a table that hands out the first title: the seriemester is whoever finishes top on the first weekend of April. Nothing ends there. The top eight go into the sluttspill and play quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final, all best-of-three, with the higher seed hosting games one and three. Whoever wins that final is the sluttspillmester and takes the Champions League group-stage place.

The two titles going to different clubs is no oddity: it happened last season, and it failed to happen the year before only because Storhamar won both without losing a game. The final is played at the end of May, almost two months after the last round of the regular phase — a gap that asks a side to be whole in spring when it was flying in winter.

The bottom is tiered too. Only the fourteenth goes down automatically; the twelfth and thirteenth play a two-legged qualifier against the second and third of 1. divisjon, while that division's champion goes up without playing it. Last season Fjellhammer survived that route and Haslum did not.