HJK had come up on the rails brilliantly in recent weeks, staying unbeaten in the Championship Round to lead on goal difference heading into the final day, but only needing to match Inter Turku's result, they gave themselves too much to do late on against AC Oulu.
Oulu were celebrating securing the fourth and final European place for next summer, and they continued their celebrations 10 minutes into this match, stunning the capacity crowd at Bolt Arena when Niklas Jokelainen found Camilo Triana at the edge of the area, and he turned and fired into the top corner.
With 20 minutes of the first half still to play, the day got worse for HJK when Oulu kept an attack alive following a corner, resulting in Rasmus Karjalainen playing the ball across and the unfortunate Mihailo Bogicevic turning it into his own net.
At the break, HJK brought on Teemu Pukki for his final 45 minutes in professional football, but for another half an hour, the Helsinki side failed to make inroads. That all changed in the 76th minute, when Mads Borchers pulled one back, and just a minute later, the Danish striker scored his 12th goal in seven games after being assisted by Pukki.
When Matias Ojala was sent off for a dreadful tackle just five minutes after coming on, it looked for all the world that HJK would push on and find the winner, only for the 10 men to surprise them again in the 84th minute, when Tuomas Kaukua set up Karjalainen to restore the lead for Oulu.
Determined to go out on a high, Pukki registered his second assist two minutes later, as Nikolai Alho levelled the scores once again, but with four minutes and added time still to play, HJK were unable to find the winning goal that would see them take the title. That left them hoping KuPS had made a comeback, while Oulu finished their campaign unbeaten in five.
With goal difference against them, Inter Turku had to hope Oulu were doing them a favour as they took on KuPS who were already guaranteed a third-place finish, relinquishing the title they had won in the previous two seasons.
The HJK result would mean nothing if FC Inter didn't get the job done themselves, and they took a big step in the right direction midway through the first half when a floated Seth Saarinen cross was headed down and in by Alie Conteh.
If the Turku side saw the half-time score from Helsinki, it seemed to spur them on, as they doubled their advantage just four minutes after the restart with a rocket from 25 yards from Jasse Tuominen. For the rest of the match, Eetu Huuhtanen in goal was the Inter Turku hero, making five saves after the break alone to preserve the clean sheet and the victory for the visitors.
At the final whistle, FC Inter had to wait for news from Helsinki, before the confirmation of HJK's draw came through, and the Turku side could celebrate a first Veikkausliiga title win since 2008, denying a fairy tale finish for the country's record scorer, Teemu Pukki.
Gnistan only needed to avoid a heavy defeat to finish fifth, but they instead inflicted one on VPS to end a seven-match winless run in style, albeit too little too late to qualify for Europe, while the Vaasa side finish sixth without a win in five.
Casper Holmelund had the visitors ahead with 15 minutes played, but from then on it was all Gnistan - 15 minutes later the hosts were ahead thanks to two goals in four minutes from Kosmo Launiala.
Joakim Latonen added the third soon after the hour mark, before Sergei Eremenko and Adam Jouhi completed the rout in the final quarter of an hour.
Review the final standings in the 2026 Veikkausliiga on Flashscore.