The Sparta Warriors are a Norwegian ice hockey club based in Sarpsborg. They are members of the highest Norwegian ice hockey league, Eliteserien (known as GET-ligaen for sponsorship reasons). The Warriors are the ice hockey department of IL Sparta, a sports club founded in 1928. Ice hockey was first included as an activity in 1959, and is now one of two sports practised by the club, the other being football. The club competed as IL Sparta until 1986, at which point a near-bankruptcy highlighted the need to separate the various departments into financially independent units. They were then known as Sparta Hockey until 1995, when the club actually did go bankrupt and were reformed as IHK Sparta Sarpsborg. The turn of the millennium saw the introduction of the "Bears" nickname, which was used