Lausanne

The strangest line on Lausanne HC's résumé is a name change. In 1941 the club merged with Star HC and the Lausanne name returned in 1949. That the club existed at all to merge traces back to Alfred Mégroz, who founded it in 1922, which makes it one of the older sides in Swiss hockey.

For decades that history carried more weight than the trophy cabinet. Then came a five-year run that reordered the club's identity entirely: National League titles in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, five in a row for a club that had gone without a championship for most of its life. The Swiss Cup has stayed out of reach throughout — a final appearance in 2016 remains the closest Lausanne has come.

Among the players who carried that title run, Joël Genazzi stands out as a home-grown fixture of the blue-and-white era.

Across Lake Geneva, the derby with Genève-Servette still carries the weight of the Derby lémanique, while Fribourg-Gottéron supplies the other fixture Lausanne fans mark on the calendar.