Vienna Capitals

Vienna Capitals have won the ICE Hockey League title twice, and the first one came the hard way: in the 2004–05 final they needed a seventh game against EC KAC to take it. The second, in 2016–17, went the opposite way entirely — the Caps swept through the entire playoffs without losing a series. Goaltender Frédéric Chabot carried much of the weight in that first triumph, while the second belonged in part to Andreas Nödl, a Vienna native who came home from the NHL in time to lift the trophy with the club that had produced him.

The team was formed in 2001 to fill the gap left by Wiener EV, which had folded a year earlier and left the capital without a top-flight side. Under three different sponsor names since — first EV, then UPC, now spusu — the identity underneath has stayed the same, right down to the yellow, black and red.

No player has stayed longer or scored more than the pair who defined the club's middle years. Philippe Lakos holds the appearance record outright, 791 games in Capitals colours, while Rafael Rotter went out in 2024 as the all-time leading scorer with 440 points from 632 matches, the kind of career supporters measure others against. His brother André Lakos won both championships across two separate spells and is remembered as much for staying as for scoring.

Matches against EC KAC are still called the Schlager, a name that dates back to those two finals, and the Caps have never needed reminding what is at stake when Klagenfurt is the visitor. Graz99ers provide the other fixture with an edge to it. What has eluded the club is the Austrian Cup, discontinued in 2012 without a single one of those going to Vienna.