Havlickuv Brod

Promotion in Havlíčkův Brod has come from the bottom up rather than the top down: the club's only two league titles are both third-tier, in 1992/93 and 2005/06, each taking it up into the 1. Liga. It held that level from 1993 to 1999 and again from 2006 to 2015, reaching the playoff semi-finals in 2010/11 and finishing fourth in the regular season three years later. The one taste of the top flight came far earlier and briefly, in the 1947/48 Czechoslovak championship, where the team finished bottom of its group and went straight back down. Since 2015/16 it has sat in the 2. Liga's Western Group.

The club traces back to 1928 as Jiskra Havlíčkův Brod, and its name has moved with the times since: BK from 1990, HC Rebel from 1998, then BK again from 2015. The Rebel spell left the nickname that stuck regardless of what the badge says now — Rebelové, borrowed from a local beer brand rather than any actual reputation for indiscipline.

No local name carries more weight than Jaroslav Holík, born in the town when it was still Německý Brod, who won a World Championship gold with Czechoslovakia in 1972 and took seven league titles — nearly all of it earned after he had left for Dukla Jihlava. His brother Jiří followed the same path out of the junior ranks and was made an honorary citizen of the town in 2024, a recognition that outlasted his playing days by decades.

That shared pipeline to Jihlava is also what gives the derby its edge: fixtures against Dukla are known locally as the Derby Vysočiny, a meeting sharpened by how many of the region's best players wore both shirts before it was over.