Montpellier

Montpellier is a city better known for handball, rugby and football than for ice, and a rink in the south of France has always had to argue its case. The argument started in 1969, when the Club des Sports de Glace de Montpellier began skating at the Lunaret Zoo rink. Over the years the team went by a string of names: Les Pingouins, Les Couleuvres, Les Krakens, Les Mustangs.

The current identity dates from 2002, when the club was restructured as the Montpellier Agglomération Hockey Club and took the Vipers nickname. It won the third-tier French title in 2003, then the second-tier title in 2004, and it later moved into the Patinoire Végapolis in the Odysseum district. The rink seats 2,400 and had opened in 2000. In 2015 the club became Montpellier Métropole Hockey Club and won the third-tier title again that year.

The top flight has stayed out of reach. Montpellier has not won the Division 1 title or the Coupe de France, and twice it has come close one level down, finishing runners-up in Division 2 in 2018 and 2025.

The nearest rivalry is with Nîmes, whose team is known as Les Krokos. The two meet in the Derby Occitan.

The club has also produced its own players. Kilian Cambon, Thibaud Kiener and Loan Mestadier came through the academy, and so did the current captain, Théo Caubet. A women's team, the Médusa, plays under the same roof.

The story still runs back to the Lunaret Zoo, where a rink with penguins for a nickname was the first place Montpellier learned to play hockey.