HK Košice

Three Czechoslovak championships came in a decade when the club still carried the name of the East Slovak Ironworks, TJ VSŽ Košice — the titles fell in 1977/78, 1980/81 and 1988/89. Independent Slovakia brought two more league crowns, in 1996/97 and 1998/99. The Slovak Cup has been the more reliable prize, won nine times, most recently in 2003.

The club has spent most of its history under a different name than the one it carries now. Founded on 12 August 1967, when its handball players broke away from the multi-sport club TJ Slávia VŠT Košice, it operated for three decades as TJ VSŽ Košice before a string of rebrandings — HK VSŽ Košice, 1. MHK Košice, HŠK ŠG Košice — brought it to its present form, HK Košice, only in 2020.

Martin Lipták, named the club's best player in 1991, now sits as head coach, a link between the playing generation that won the Slovak titles of the 1990s and the current one still chasing another league crown. Radoslav Antl, whose two spells at the club spanned 1995 to 2016 with a gap in between, was named best player three times over that span.

Against Tatran Prešov, the club plays out the Východníarske derby, the fixture that carries the weight of eastern Slovakia's handball rivalry; a separate derby within Košice itself is reserved for Crows Košice. Matches are played in black and yellow at the Slavomír Šipoš Handball Hall, a 2,500-seat venue named for a club legend.