HV71 was founded on May 24, 1971, as a merger between
Husqvarna IF and
Vätterstads IK, and initially used the name Huskvarna/Vätterstads IF, but later that year it was shortened to the current name HV71. The club were first promoted to the top Swedish league,
Elitserien, in the 1978–79 season, but were relegated after only one season. They were promoted again in the 1984–85 season and have remained in the top division ever since, with the exception of the 2021–22 season and are as of the 2000s a well-established top club in Sweden. The club has won the national championship 5 times; 1994–95, 2003–04, 2007–08, 2009–10 and 2016–17. 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, in the 1999–2000 season on a construction site.
1994–95 season HV71 won its first national championship in the 1994–95 season as the last (8th) team to qualify for the playoffs. The club remains the only team in Swedish ice hockey history to win the play-offs after finishing in 8th place after the end of the regular season. In the quarter-finals HV beat
Djurgårdens IF Hockey, the team that finished first in the regular season, in three straight games. In the semifinals they came back, after having lost the first two games to
Malmö Redhawks, the team who was the defending champions, and turned the series around to a 3–2 victory. Finally they managed a decisive sudden death victory in the finals against
Brynäs IF, in the fourth period of the fifth game to win the championship. The name of the historical scorer was
Johan Lindbom, but other big heroes during the play-offs were the goalie Boo Ahl and the Finnish center-forward Esa Keskinen.
2003–04 season The second championship was won during the 2003–04 season after beating
Modo Hockey with a 4–2 series,
Frölunda HC with 4–2 in games in the semi-finals, and then winning the finals with a 4–3 match series against Färjestads BK. In the quarter-finals HV71 set a new Swedish record, for scoring the most goals in one period, with seven in the first period, of the second game against Modo Hockey. In fact, they scored the seven goals, during the last ten minutes of the period. The game ended with a 10–1 victory. In the final, goalie
Stefan Liv managed to keep his goal empty, in all four games that the team won, the two last games ending 1–0 and 5–0 respectively. He also kept the goal empty in the last semi-final, which means he managed this, for 5 consecutive wins.
2006–07 season HV71 ended the regular season as the second placed team after Färjestads BK. HV chose to meet Brynäs IF in the quarter-finals and managed after seven games (4 wins and 3 losses) to continue to the semifinals. The team faced Modo Hockey and even with home advantage HV did not manage to proceed to the finals having lost 4 out of 7 games. This meant that HV for the second consecutive year lost a 7-game series in the semifinals to the eventual Swedish champions. During the season the newly acquired defenceman
Johan Åkerman was a trendsetting player and also made his national debut for Sweden at the age of 34. HV's starting goaltender,
Erik Ersberg, had his breakthrough and played for the national team; and was awarded with the
Honken Trophy as Sweden's best goaltender. During the off-season he signed with the
NHL team
Los Angeles Kings. ==Season-by-season record==