Val Pusteria HC

Brunico sits at the head of the Val Pusteria. Ice hockey came to town in 1954, when the club started life as EV MAK Bruneck; the badge and the name changed more than once after that, through HC Brunico and HC Val Pusteria.

The black and yellow have carried that nickname through their biggest nights. The Coppa Italia arrived in 2010–11, the club's only Italian Cup, and the Supercoppa Italiana followed three times, in 2011, 2014 and 2016 — a run that made the Lupi a fixture in finals without ever quite landing the league title itself, four Serie A runner-up finishes standing as the nearest they got. The rivalry that mattered most through those years was local rather than distant: the Derby Altoatesino against HC Bolzano, a fixture that turns a South Tyrolean hockey weekend into something closer to a province arguing with itself.

Armin Helfer's number 62 hangs retired at the arena, a rare honour for a club built more on academy graduates and long-serving Italian internationals than imported stars, though Rick Bragnalo and Miroslav Fryčer both passed through on their way to NHL careers.

In 2021 the club left Serie A behind for Austria's ICE Hockey League, and that same year it left its old home too. The Lungo Rienza, holding 2,050, gave way to the Arena Brunico, built for 3,100 and now the address where the Wolves' derby nights and cup runs play out.