HV71

HV71 (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈhôːveː ˌɧɵtːɪˈɛtː]), often referred to as just HV, is a Swedish professional ice hockey club based in Jönköping, playing in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), the first tier of Swedish ice hockey. The team played in the 2008–09 Champions Hockey League season, and has also participated in the new Champions Hockey League tournament since the 2014–15 season. Between 2008 and 2013, HV also participated in the European Trophy tournament. With the exception of a one-year stint in the 2021–22 season in Sweden's second tier, HockeyAllsvenskan, where they won the promotion playoffs, the club has played continuously in the SHL since being promoted in the 1984–85 season.

History

HV71 was founded on May 24, 1971, as a merger between Husqvarna IF and Vätterstads IK, and initially used the name Huskvarna/Vätterstads IF, but later that year it was shortened to the current name HV71. The club were first promoted to the top Swedish league, Elitserien, in the 1978–79 season, but were relegated after only one season. They were promoted again in the 1984–85 season and have remained in the top division ever since, with the exception of the 2021–22 season, and are as of the 2000s a well-established top club in Sweden. The club has won the national championship five times; 1995, 2004, 2008, 2010 and 2017. For a few years in the late 1990s, HV71 was also called the Blue Bulls.

Many Swedes associate HV71 with the club's old arena Rosenlundshallen, which was inaugurated in 1958 as Sweden's first indoor ice hockey arena, but was replaced in 2000 with the new and improved Kinnarps Arena. As the new arena was built around and on top of Rosenlundshallen, HV71 practically played its games, in the 1999–2000 season on a construction site.