HC Kometa Brno ("Comet" in English) is a professional ice hockey team based in Brno, Czech Republic. They play in the Czech Extraliga. Kometa is the most successful ice hockey club in the Czech Republic with 14 Czechoslovak (and Czech) league championship titles. Holding three European Cup titles, Kometa ranks as the most successful Czech club in international ice hockey. The team HC Kometa Brno has won three Czech Extraliga championships, capturing the title back-to-back in 2016–17 and 2017–18, and for a third time in 2024–25, so therefore, the club is also the current champion (2025) of the Czech Republic.
The club was founded in 1953 as an army ice hockey club with the name Rudá hvězda Brno ("Red Star"). The majority of players were transferred from two hockey clubs in Brno (TJ Spartak Brno Zbrojovka and TJ Spartak GZ Královo Pole[1]). In 1962, the club changed its name to ZKL Brno (ZKL is an abbreviation of "Ball Bearing Factory")[2] and stopped being an army team. In 1976, the name was changed to Zetor Brno. Shortly after the revolution (1994), the club changed its name to HC Kometa Brno. "Kometa" was the team's nickname since the 1950s (as opposed to the official "Red Star") and the team was commonly referred to by this name since its beginning.
Players and fans of Kometa during 2011 post-season friendly match
In 1996, the team was relegated from Czech Extraliga to the second highest ice hockey league, the 1st Czech Republic Hockey League. For many years, the team struggled due to poor financing and multiple changes of owners, facing relegation again in 2001–2002. The club almost ceased to exist, playing in the East division of the third-highest Czech ice hockey league. By the 2003–2004 season, it returned to the first league. In 2004, Kometa played its first playoff series since 1997, reached the semifinals in 2008, and reached the finals in 2009.
In March 2012, the team managed to defeat HC Sparta Praha, the winner of the 2011–12 Czech Extraliga regular season, in six games, qualifying for the playoff semifinals.[4] In the semifinals, they defeated HC Plzeň 1929, the runner-up of the regular season, in five games. In the final, Kometa lost the Czech Extraliga championship final to HC Pardubice in six games.[5]
The name
The club's name has been formally Kometa for 31 years. In reality, however, it is much older. It has existed as an informal, yet completely dominant, automatic name used by fans, rivals, the general public, public authorities including those responsible for sports and the media since at least the mid-1960s. Formally used names: ZKL or Zetor are synonyms of the same entity, which was the tractor manufacturer ZETOR. This company was an investor in the club between 1962 and 1992. Even at this time, only the name KOMETA was used in public (albeit informally, but without reservation)
Team culture
Fan base
The Kometa can be proud of having a large, loyal and optimistic community of supporters. But also inventive. Inventive.
Transport and traveling
Traveling to the opponent's stadium was not easy at all in the early days (in the 1950s). Although Czechoslovakia was not a large country, it was still too small for frequent air connections and, in addition, the otherwise dense railway network, damaged by the war, was not maintained. The road network was even worse. Every trip to the rival's ice was tiring for the team. Only a few fans could afford it. Only over time, the situation improved and was adjusted by the development of the highway network.
Kometa Expres: The Club train
Kometa Expres ready dock for hundreds of fans in front of the main entrance of Winning Group Arena.
A regular railway connection runs around the home arena. It is a traditional railway siding (to the Brno Exhibition Center), regularly connected to the general railway network. It was rarely used, but it was an extremely attractive rarity, when the railway line runs through the middle of a regular inner-city street-embankment. There was only a short and direct path to realizing the vision of creating a train in the club colors for a very devoted and passionate fan community. And so it happened, the entire train with eight to fifteen carriages was rented and the entire area of the rented locomotive was purchased as a parade for the club colors and the entire express was named Kometa Expres. First time before Christmas Eve 2017. In the seasons when Kometa was also the champion of the Czech Republic, this train was sent out several times with a large expedition of supporters and crossed the Czech state with a completely extraordinary response and strengthened the cohesion of the club community and the club's fans. Apparently, even in a broad international context, it was a unique step of the club's identity.[6]
↑ Originally Závody kuličkových ložisek; this factory – now ZKL Group BrnoArchived 21 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine – became the main sponsor of the club.
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