HC Vrchlabi

Vrchlabí got its ice hockey club the way many Czech factory towns did after the war: in 1948, workers organised under the Tělovýchovná jednota banner set up TJ Stadion Vrchlabí.

The club's shape changed twice under financial pressure. In 1997 it became a limited company as HC Vrchlabí, and in 2011, after its main sponsor D&D Elektromont pulled out, the board sold the club's 1. Liga licence to HC Písek to stave off bankruptcy and dropped back into the regional leagues under a new name, HC Stadion Vrchlabí. Promotion back to the second tier came twice: in 2007, and again in 2020, though that second climb was wiped out by the pandemic before the club settled into two seasons in 1. Liga anyway.

What has kept Vrchlabí on the hockey map is less its own trophy case than the players who passed through late in their careers. Petr Sýkora, Jaroslav Bednář, Jan Hlaváč and Jaroslav Hlinka all wore the club's jersey after Extraliga and NHL careers elsewhere, lending a small-town rink a roster with international mileage. The club's own product, Jakub Rychlovský, went the other way, moving up through the youth system and on to the Detroit Red Wings organisation.

The team plays in blue and white, though sponsors have crept red onto the jerseys, at the Zimní stadion Vrchlabí, which stood roofless for its first quarter-century until a cover went up in 2002.