Vsetín

Organised skating in Vsetín goes back to 1904, but it took another three and a half decades before the town's players had a proper club to call their own, one that traces its founding to 1939. What followed was one of the more restless naming histories in Czech hockey — Zbrojovka, Dadák, Petra, Slovnaft, before the club settled, in 2016, on VHK ROBE Vsetín.

The identity that mattered most, though, was built in the 1990s. Between 1995 and 1999, Vsetín won the Czech Extraliga four years running, then took a fifth and sixth title either side of a runners-up finish in 2000. That same team reached third place in the European Hockey League in 1997–98 and lifted the Rona Cup.

The good years did not last. Financial trouble pulled the club down through the divisions and into bankruptcy, and in 2008 a new entity had to buy up the licence just to keep senior hockey alive in the town, starting again from the second tier.

Games against PSG Berani Zlín are still played as the Valašské derby, the fixture that matters most to supporters known locally as Vsacani. They watch in green and yellow at the Zimní stadion Na Lapači, a ground that holds 5,400, of whom 1,700 have a seat.