Karhu Basket

The gymnastics and sports society Voimistelu- ja urheiluseura Karhu took shape in Kauhajoki on 21 October 1910. That came in 1946, when Eero Kouhi, Mauno Kirja and Matti Syrjälä put together the section that would carry the name Kauhajoen Pesukarhut for most of the following half-century, only aligning it with the parent club as Kauhajoen Karhu in 2000.

The team's first taste of the Korisliiga, in 2007-08, ended in immediate relegation. It has not left the top flight since winning promotion back the following season. The bigger break came in 2017, when the basketball side was split off into its own professional entity, Karhu Basket ry. It paid off within a year: the newly independent club took its first Finnish championship in 2017-18 under Jussi Laakso, beating Salon Vilpas, then added two more titles in 2018-19 and 2021-22, the second also at Vilpas's expense.

Bojan Šarčević, the finals MVP from that first title, went on to become the club's all-time leading scorer in the Korisliiga. Abroad, Karhu Basket became the first Finnish club to reach a FIBA Europe Cup semi-final, in 2022-23, having eliminated FC Porto in the quarter-finals before Anwil Włocławek stopped them short of the final. Since late 2022 the club has played at the IKH Areena, built to hold 3,500.

None of it traces back further than a gymnastics club founded for reasons that had nothing to do with basketball.