Litvínov

HC Litvínov gave the 1998 Czech Olympic gold medal squad more players than any other club in the country.

The club grew out of the chemical works of Horní Litvínov, registered in November 1945 as SK Stalinovy závody. The current name, HC Verva Litvínov, dates to 2011.

Litvínov has been the club that develops rather than the club that collects. Robert Reichel, Martin Ručinský, Petr Nedvěd, Petr Klima, Jiří Šlégr, Josef Beránek, Petr Svoboda, Radim Vrbata — the list of NHL careers that started on the black-and-yellow ice is long enough that the town's reputation as a hockey factory needs no further argument. A domestic title came only once, in 2014–15, with Pavel Francouz between the posts; before that, the closest the club got was a runners-up finish in 1995–96, and further back, three second-place finishes in the old Czechoslovak Extraliga through the 1980s. The 1958–59 Czechoslovak league title remains the one trophy from the amateur era.

None of it matters more on derby day than the twelve kilometres to Most. The Most–Litvínov derby is fought between two towns that share a coalfield and very little goodwill, and it draws a sharper edge from the crowd than the club's other long rivalry, with Škoda Plzeň.