Rytíři Kladno

Kladno was a particularly strong team in the late 1970s, when it won four consecutive league titles (1975–1978), and again in 1980. The team's star, Milan Nový, was league MVP in 1977, 1981, and 1982, and won six scoring titles. František Pospíšil was league MVP in 1971 and 1972. Team was sponsored by the State Security police until Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Before season 1997/1998 happened what everyone expected for some time, Kladno lost its sponsor, ironworks Huť Poldi. After a long time the Poldi disappeared from Kladno hockey jerseys and the successes that this famous club has achieved in previous years have also disappeared and was de facto always last. Primarily the lack of funds did not allow to management improvement of club cadre and the main coach resigned.[4]

Despite the departure of a number of players abroad, Kladno did not go bad after 2003 and celebrated return to the Czech highest-level league. However after the season 2012-13 Kladno performed poorly in the extraliga. Nor the withdrawal of coaches helped, the team reached the highest league again after the 12 years.

Jaromír Jágr played for his hometown Kladno for parts of four seasons, including during the NHL lockouts in 1994, 2004, and 2012. In January 2018, Jágr was assigned to HC Kladno after a partial season with the Calgary Flames.[5] Jágr took over majority ownership from his father in 2011.[6]

During the 2010–2011 season, the team was docked 6 points for having used players who were not correctly registered to the club, an affair which also involved the clubs BK Mladá Boleslav and HC Plzeň.[7]

Rytíři Kladno players (2017)

The club began in 1924 as the ice hockey department of SK Kladno, abbreviated HOSK Kladno. When the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized the Czechoslovak government in 1948, private sports clubs were reorganized as tělovýchovných jednot (TJ, lit. 'physical education unities') and obligated to join the Sokol movement; HOSK Kladno was therefore renamed TJ Sokol Kladno. The following year, the club became associated with the United Steelworks (Spojené ocelárny, národní podnik, SONP), a national enterprise which operated the former Poldi steelworks in Kladno, and its name was expanded to TJ Sokol SONP Kladno.

When the Czechoslovak State Committee for Physical Education and Sport (SVTVS) was established in 1953, all sports clubs were designated as voluntary sports organizations (dobrovolné sportovním organizacím, DSO) and nine DSOs were created in affiliation with trade unions. TJ Sokol SONP Kladno was renamed DSO Baník Kladno SONP, as 'Baník' was the name of the DSO affiliated with the union of miners and steelworkers. The club name was shortened to TJ SONP Kladno in 1958 and that name was used for almost twenty years, until it was expanded to TJ Poldi SONP Kladno in 1977.

Following the Velvet Revolution in 1989, the club returned to private ownership and was called HC Poldi Kladno. The club retained the 'HC Kladno' element of its name for the following two decades, though the full club name changed multiple times for sponsorship reasons. Sponsors included Poldi, which had been re-privatized; Velvana, an automotive chemical manufacturer; Vagnerplast, an acrylic bathtub manufacturer; Rabat, a construction materials supplier; and GEUS Okna, a window manufacturer.

The club has been named Rytíři Kladno since 2011.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to HC Kladno.

• Official website (in Czech)
• Kladno Sport
• Rytíři Kladno - Facebook
• Meltzer, Bill. "Kladno: Small Town, Big Draft Legacy" article at NHL.com Retrieved 06–27–06.