HV71

HV71, often referred to as just HV, is a Swedish professional ice hockey club based in Jönköping, playing in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL; formerly Elitserien), the top tier of Swedish ice hockey. The team played in the 2008–09 Champions Hockey League season, and also participates in the new Champions Hockey League tournament since the 2014–15 season. Between 2008 and 2013, HV also participated in the European Trophy tournament.

Club history
HV71 was founded on May 24, 1971, as a merger between Husqvarna IF and Vätterstads IK, and took the name Huskvarna/Vätterstads IF but later that year it was shortened to the current name HV71. The club first entered the top Swedish league, Elitserien, in 1979, but was soon relegated. They won promotion again in 1985–86 and have remained in the top division ever since and are as of the 2000s a well-established top club in Sweden. The club has won the national championship four times; 1995, 2004, 2008 and 2010. 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 during the season 1999–00 in a construction site.

On December 6, 2006, HV71 topped Elitserien after a 5-2-win over Färjestads BK, at the same time as the club's two youth teams (under 20 and 18 years old) topped their leagues, J20 SuperElit and J18 Elit. This was an event that had never happened before in HV71's entire club history.

Season-by-season record
Note: GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; Pts = Points; GF = Goals for; GA = Goals against


 * 1 NHL players in Elitserien due to the 2004–05 NHL lockout.