History
The club was founded in 1998 as Vityaz Podolsk. In 2000, the team moved to the neighboring city of Chekhov; however, the team kept playing under the name Vityaz Podolsk until 2004, where the renaming was finally done. The team initially played its home games at the Ice Palace Vityaz in Podolsk, the same arena HK MVD Balashikha used until 2006. Such a thing was allowed by virtue of the opening in 2004 of a new arena in Chekhov, the Ice Hockey Center 2004, that Vityaz began using. Initially, this arena had a capacity of 1,370; it was expanded in 2007-08 to 3,300. Vityaz played at the top level of Russian hockey for the 2000-01 RSL season; it got relegated to Vysshaya Liga at the end of the season. In 2005, Vityaz made to the Vysshaya Liga final losing the championship to HC MVD 4 games to 1 but earned a promotion back to the elite level.
Rumors of a move back to Podolsk arose in the wake of the inaugural KHL season as even with the expansion of 2007-08, Chekhov's capacity is still below the norm established by the KHL. The team indeed restarted playing their home games in Podolsk, but remained attached to Chekhov.
Read more about this topic: Vityaz Chekhov
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