Between Christmas and New Year in 1999, six people met in the Small Hall at the current Paegas Arena in Prague to have a look at and try out a new sport they were to be introduced to. The sport was curling. Although they were formerly top-class sportsmen (with one exception) and had competed in many dance competitions, none of them certainly expected that in a few short years they would found a curling club, one of the first to be founded, which would become one of the biggest and most successful Czech clubs, and that a gamble on youth would enable the club to obtain not only a whole number of excellent placements, including many junior championships of the Czech Republic, but also podium finishes at adult Czech championships, including the highest possible - national champion.
And so in December 1990 OBČANSKÉ SDRUŽENÍ SAVONA and its curling club (CC SAVONA) were established. The name SAVONA was derived from the founders' surnames and has nothing in common with similar words (for example the name of a town in Northern Italy). CC SAVONA PRAHA has always been part of the civic association. The year the curling club was established was then reflected in an expansion of the original name to "CC SAVONA PRAHA 1990".
Our curling club merged with CC JUNIOR PRAHA in 1999. Since then the membership of CC SAVONA Praha 1990 has been around 50 curlers of various ages, although young people predominate.
Even though the club's first demonstrable sporting success in league competition was achieved by the women's team (SAVONA "Ž" - skip Marcela Neumannová, M. Břízová, J. Břízová, A. Samueliová and H. Šulcová), who were twice runners-up at the national championships and the national "B" team, very early on the club started to intensively orient itself on young players, who accounted for most of the members. We did not have to wait long for the results of our efforts to be seen and in (1991)/1992 our SAVONA "2" junior team (skip Vlastimil Vojtuą, A. Prchlík, P. ©těpánek and R. Hacker) was the first from our club to become national champion, although it was "only" the junior title. Since then, there have only been two years ((1993)/1994 and (2002)/2003) when our "conveyor belt" of junior titles stopped working; in addition we have accumulated many bronze and silver medals.
The good junior set up at the club, which was further enhanced by Canadian coach Rodger Schmidt, soon led to our best junior results ever. Under Schmidt we moved from the "B" group to the "world group" (group "A") at the world championships. This was achieved by the SAVONA "3" junior team (skip Vít Nekovařík, P. ©ulc, J. Kitzberger, M. David and K. Uher), which finished 7th in 1999 and 10th the following year (2000). Given our setup (small number of members, unbelievable difficulties with training) it was an extraordinary and unfortunately not wholly appreciated success. The most successful junior champions were part of the SAVONA "3" team - skip Pert Šulc (five times), Karel Uher (five times), Otto ©varc (five times), Marek David (four times), Jan Samueli (three times), O. Šajner (once), P. Šťastný (once) and L. Kitzberger (once).
The women's junior teams were not as successful at the start, but also won bronze and silver medals. The girls made the "golden" breakthrough in (1999)/2000, when SAVONA "L" (skip L. Danielisová (champion twice), J. Jelínková (twice), L. Kučerová (twice), J. Majerová (once) and I. Luľaičová (once)) became the national champions. The girls repeated their success in (2000)/2001, when they had been strengthened by the addition of Hana Synáčková - the most frequent junior champion we have (four times), although only one of her titles was not won with CC Kolibris.
The groundwork laid by Rodger Schmidt was capitalised on by SAVONA "2", which first won the silver medal at the Czech Championships in (1999)/2000 before transforming silver into gold in (2000)/2001 and achieving the greatest domestic success by our club, at the senior Czech championships (skip Petr Štěpánek (three times junior champion, once senior champion), V. Nekovařík (1 + 1), A. Prchlík (2 + 1), V. Vojtuš (2 + 1) and P. Fiřt (0 + 1)). This team (the first to be junior and senior champion of the Czech Republic) also became, thanks to the prior success of CC Aritma at the European championships, the first Czech team to play in the "A" group at the European championships from the very beginning.
After lean years, following the arrival of Renata Lepąíková from CC Montáľe the women's team improved and finished third in (1999)/2000 (K. Lepšíková, M. Vojtušová and A. Samueliová) and second in (2000)/2001 (H. Synáčková, M. Vojtušová and A. Samueliová). In (2002)/2003 the former junior champions, now SAVONA "H", made a significant impact in the women's competition and again came second (skip Hana Synáčková, L. Danielisová, K. Pilařová, J. Jelínková and L. Kučerová). Thanks to their good performances, H. Synáčková (twice) and L. Danielisová (twice) were called up for the Czech national team, where they did very well.
After several good finishes among the first three teams in past years, the thirteenth year of our international tournament, the SAVONA CRYSTAL STONE CHALLENGE CUP, saw our club's first win, by the SAVONA "P" team skippered by Petr Šulc (K. Samueliová. J. Samueli, K. Urbanová, substitute K. Uher and guest J. Snitil). SAVONA "2" (skip V. Nekovařík) won the international KOLIBRIS CUP 2004. The SAVONA "H" women's team also had a great season in 2004, when the girls H. Synáčková, L. Danielisová, K. Pilařová, L. Kučerová and J. Jelínková won the Czech Championships and, with it, the right to compete at the European Championships. There they were hampered by their lack of experience and did not stay in the "A" group, although it was still a great success.
Our womens team Savona "H" (Synackova, Danielisova, Kucerova and Jelinkova) won Czech Championship 2005.It was their second National Championship title in senior women category with right to take part in the Europian Championschip. Junior team Savona "D" (Mosova, Kucerova, Samkova, Malkova, Canova and Romanova) won for the first time Czech junior Championship.
In the season 2005/2006 won team Savona "H" their third title of Czech Championship. It was the same team as a matter of fact. The boys Junior team Savona "4" (Vojtus, Bares, Hejhal and Stepanek) won for the first time Czech Junior Championship 2006.