IHC Písek

IHC Písek is an ice hockey team in Písek, Czech Republic. They play in the Second Ice Hockey League, in the Czech Republic (third -level ice hockey league).

The Ice Skating Club was founded in 1876 in Písek. The Ice Skating Club and Sokol have helped to foster sportsmanship enthusiasm of the local inhabitants. When the first hockey sticks arrived to Bohemia in 1892 it didn't take long before this sport equipment appeared also in the South of Bohemia. In terms of Písek the first extant written mention of this new game ( the game of hockey was originally born around 1875 in Canada ) can be found in an article of the Otavan Magazine issue no.47 from 1902. This article introduced the game and recommended it for consideration by the Ice Skating Club at its Annual General Meeting. The period article states : "By introducing this game, which in fact may be considered somewhat an alternative to tennis, the Ice Skating Club would be favourably viewed by the ladies, as well as the Club’s members.  It could be possible to assemble several teams and organise interesting matches.”
 
The first to run games of Bandy Hockey (- the predecessor of the Canadian hockey, which was played with a ball on ice) was the town of Strakonice in 1908.  A few years later it was already played in the town České Budějovice.  At the beginning of the First World War an engineer Karel Proche moved to Písek from Zbraslav.  He turned out to be a great promoter of this new sport.  He owned two hockey sticks, which he took with him to the pond of Hánovec in winter in 1917 (which, was not very good for ice games at that time).  Hockey took off and soon there were many ice-hockey pioneers chasing each other around with curved branches used as hockey sticks. Most of them were originally tennis players. They bought real hockey sticks quickly and after a few trainings on Šarlák and the river near the swimming pool the players of Písek were about to fight in their first match.

The first Czech Champions at that time (1923) were the players from Strakonice, who invited their Písek colleagues to play a match on their home [Strakonice] turf. For the first time before the actual match the hockey players from Písek asked for the explanation of the rules of the game. Then they proceeded to beat the - at that time leading team - with the score of 4:3.  It was 20 January 1924 and one of those scoring into the Strakonice‘s net was the attacker Tomáš Švihovec, who later became a well-known ice-hockey personality of Písek of the first half of the 20th century.

Bandy, the predecessor of modern ice-hockey, had not managed to take a proper root in the town yet when it was replaced a year later by so called „Canada“.  This was a game played with a plastic puck, something which was met for the first time by the celebrated seven pioneers of Czech ice hockey in 1909 during a match at an international tournament in Chamonix, France.  The players of Písek absorbed all that faster than any other teams, who were used to the original game with the ball, and so it did not take long for the Písek team to become unrivalled in this game in the region of Southern Bohemia (despite being initially beaten 4:1 during the first of this type of matches in Strakonice).  The first true competition for their team did not appear until the end of the 1920s when the AC Stadium was founded in the town České Budějovice.

SK Písek was founded in 1910 by merging The Ice-Skating and The Lawn-Tennis Clubs.  After their meeting on 15 November 1924 at hotel Dvořáček (nowadays known as „Otava“) SK Písek extended its activities also to ice.  A hockey regional union was established and it became a part of the Czech Ice Hockey Association (ČSLH).  The representatives of the SK Písek committed themselves to establishing one local ice rink specifically for the ice-hockey game and so nothing stood in the way of the joyous flourishing of ice-hockey.  In Písek in the 1930s, apart from the elite members of the SK Písek, one could also see players from other clubs such as the SK Union, SK Slavoj, TC Orinoko, DSK Soko as well as a team made of students from local schools.  Despite these teams never reaching up to the quality of the SK Písek team, nevertheless, their contribution to promoting ice-hockey around the Písek region was invaluable.

Before the Czech Ice Hockey League was founded in the first half of the 1930s, there were only local competitions and Championships played in a tournament format.  
SK Písek, for example, won the South Bohemian Championship three times and once became the Champion of the Bohemian Countryside (1929).  SK Písek went to the semi-finals of the Czech Master Championship in 1930.   In the finals, then the front runner and Master of the Central Bohemia County - the LTC Prague was faced at the end by the AC Stadion ČB – the Bohemian Countryside Champion of that season.

Club IHC Písek was founded in 1990 by merging the clubs of VTJ Písek and JITEX Písek known as VTJ Jitex Písek.  In 1994 the Club qualified for the First National ice Hockey League where it stayed until 2005.   In the season of 2004/2005, however the Club did not succeed in the Playoffs (in which it had participated for the third time) and so was relegated to the Second League.  In 2009/2010 season the Club returned once again to the First League.  However in the following season of 2010/2011 the team finished the Postseason in the last (16th) place and after unsuccessful Playoffs for the First League, where the team ended in last 5th place, it was relegated again.   Nevertheless, the Club bought a First League License from HC Vrchlabí and once the ownership rights for the license were confirmed on the 15th of July 2011 by the president of ČSLH (The Czech Ice Hockey Association) Tomáš Král, the Club was playing in the First League again in the 2011/2012 season.  After some financial issues the Club unsuccessfully tried to qualify from the Regional League to the Second National League.  In this it finally succeeded in the 2014/2015 season.  After that in the following two years the Písek team always managed to fight their way through the Playoffs of the Second League.

Achievements
Czech 2.liga champion: 1994.

External links
Official site

Category:Ice hockey teams in the Czech Republic
Category:Písek