Karlovy Vary U20

For three seasons in the early 2010s, the junior side did something no Czech club's development team usually does: it left home to play in the Major Junior Hockey League, a competition built around Russian academies, entering as HK Energie and skating under the nickname Wolf Pack. Twice the team reached the top sixteen of the playoffs. Then, in January 2015, mid-season, it withdrew without ever lifting a trophy there.

That gamble sat awkwardly next to what the club already had on record at home. HC Energie Karlovy Vary U20 traces back to the parent club founded in 1932, though the badge has passed through several names since — Slavia, then Becherovka, before Energie was settled on in 2002, the year the junior side also adopted the name it still carries. Its clean run came in 2007–2008, when Mikuláš Antoník's group beat HC Zlín to the Czech Extraliga juniors title; three years later they returned to a final and lost it to HC Znojmo.

The team plays out of the KV Arena, known locally as the Mattoni Arena, and wears black, white and green rather than the grey trim the senior side carries. Supporters still call the club Energetici. Its derby against HC Škoda Plzeň U20 is fought under the label West Bohemian Derby, with matches against HC Verva Litvínov U20 carrying similar weight regionally.

What keeps the junior programme relevant beyond Karlovy Vary is who has come through it: Martin Frk went on to the NHL with Detroit, Carolina and Los Angeles after being drafted by Detroit, and Vojtěch Polák followed a similar path to Dallas. The arena they trained in front of holds 5,874.