HC Lev Praha

Hockey Club Lev Praha (stylized as HC LEV Praha) is a professional ice hockey team located in Prague, Czech Republic, which made their first Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) season in 2012–13. For legal and financial purposes, the club claims to be a different organization from HC Lev Poprad, which played in the KHL during the previous season.
==History==
===HC Lev in Hradec Králové and Poprad===
A team named HC Lev Hradec Králové was originally founded in 2010 and based in Hradec Králové, Czech Republic, with the intention to join the KHL. However, the Czech Ice Hockey Association refused to give permission to the club. Therefore, the team was moved to Poprad, Slovakia and was finally able to join the KHL for the 2011–12 season. But after only one KHL season the team was disbanded.
===New team in Prague (2012)===
Late in Lev Poprad's 2011–12 season, a change of owners renewed speculation about a move to Prague, Czech Republic. In March 2012, the Czech Ice Hockey Association (ČSLH) granted permission for a KHL team to play in the Czech Republic, and at the end of April, a newly-found team with the same name, HC Lev, but as a different organization, officially applied to the KHL to play in Prague.
Lev Praha has a working agreement with local Extraliga club HC Sparta Praha and the two teams share Tipsport Arena. During their first seasion, Lev also played four home games at the larger and more modern O2 Arena.
===2012–13 season===
Lev signed Czech coach Josef Jandač as their head coach for the first KHL season, who named Jiří Novotný as the first team captain. They started the season on 6 September 2012 at home with a 2–1 win against Dinamo Riga. Lev started strong, and by winning six of their first seven games, they were even leading the Western conference for a while. After the NHL lockout came into effect in September, they signed Jakub Voráček, Jiří Hudler and Zdeno Chára for the duration of the lockout. After a series of bad results the head coach, Josef Jandač, was removed on 27 October and replaced shortly afterward by Václav Sýkora. The team finished 7th in the conference and qualified for the playoffs, but were swept in the first round by HC CSKA Moscow.
==References==
==External links==
* Official Facebook page
* Official Twitter page
Category:Czech ice hockey teams
Category:Established in 2012
Category:Kontinental Hockey League teams