Baia Mare

HC Minaur Baia Mare was founded on May 15, 1974. Thus, it became the first sports club in the country specializing exclusively in handball. Its name means Gold Mine, referring to the gold mines around Baia Mare. From the very beginning, Minaur has been playing exclusively in the first division of the Romanian handball championship. In the beginning, they played in golden jerseys. The first entry to the Romanian Handball Cup was won by Minaur in 1977/1978. In 1978/79, they reached the semi-finals of the EHF Cup Winners' Cup undefeated, with two victories, where they were dismissed by SC Magdeburg. He will be second in the 1979/80 and 1980/81 seasons. In 1980/81, EHF Cup Winners' Cup reached the semi-finals again, where it was eliminated against TuS Nettelstedt. In these years, Minaur is the only rural team from the Romanian league that plays on the international stage, often much more successfully than the Bucharest clubs. In 1985, he achieved the first Romanian international handball success when he defeated the Soviet ZTR Zaporizhzhia in the final of the EHF Cup. Then, in 1988, he repeated the success. 24 years after the foundation, in 1998, the dream of every Baia Mare handball lover came true: HC Minaur became the champion of Romania! A year later, in 1999, the success was repeated, the team became champions again. The team was last champion in 2015. In 1979, 1981 and 1986, Minaur reached the semi-finals of the EHF Cup Winners' Cup.