Team Poland celebrates after securing promotion from Division IA last season in Nottingham.
photo: © International Ice Hockey Federation / Karl Denham
Hockey fever is coming back to Poland. Once a familiar sight in the top division of the IIHF World Championship, the White Eagles are soaring once again after back-to-back promotions delivered a place among the elite.
Under the guidance of Slovak head coach Robert Kalaber, the Poles won Division IB on home ice in 2022, then grabbed promotion from Division IA a year later, beating Italy – Mike Keenan and all – to second place in the group.
That ended a 22-year absence from the top table and the excitement has been building ever since.
Team captain Krystian Dziubinski has been part of that journey throughout. Now 35, the Unia Oswiecim forward has seen a surge of interest in the game this season.
“People are paying more attention” he said. “Some sponsors came to the [Polish Ice Hockey] Federation.
“Even in just one year, it's looking better. but we need to stay there for one more year, then one more year. That would give our younger players a chance to play in stronger leagues.”
Even a year ago, head coach Kalaber was hoping to see precisely these opportunities.
“We have some young players who are really good,” he said after winning promotion in Nottingham last May. “They should be in better leagues. This tournament is a chance for them to go to bigger clubs and develop as young players at a higher level.”
At present, Poland has three players in the Czech league: Litvinov’s 24-year-old forward Pavel Zygmunt, experienced Aron Chmielevski, a Czech champion in recent seasons with Ocelari Trinec but recovering from an injury-hit season that limited him to 13 games this term, and 22-year-old Kamil Walega, a stand-out on the promotion-winning roster who earned a move to Trinec this season.
Goalie John Murray, American born but a stalwart of Polish hockey for 10 years, is certainly seeing changes.
“I believe they said that crowds [in the Polish championship] were up 30% on last year as a ballpark figure,” he said. “We’ve had a little bit more media coverage than prior as well, but we could still do more. When I first went to Poland 10 years ago, the league wasn’t as good as it is now, but we did have more TV coverage.”
He’s coming off a busy season – his GKS Katowice team made the national finals, losing to Dziubinski’s Unia – and admitted that the warm-up games had been a struggle. The last five games have brought defeats against Slovenia (twice), Great Britain (twice) and Slovakia, with just four goals scored in that time.
“We can’t say we’re playing too spectacular,” he said. “But we’re ambitious. We’re just waiting for that spark to come. Right now, it’s about the process, not the results.”
The final preparation game takes place against Denmark in Sosnowiec on Tuesday, then it’s time for the real work to start. Poland plays its first elite pool game for 22 years on Saturday against Latvia.
Expectations are modest, but there’s genuine hope that, like Austria in 2019, this could be the start of a longer stay.
“We're pretty realistic,” said Murray. “We want to do enough to be able to maintain. We know we need to come up with points with Kazakhstan and/or France. Maybe a few points here or there from another team.”
Dziubinski is also focused on survival. “We're trying to catch up,” he said. “We know that we’re not going to get it perfect in every game but we know where we can create chances and we’ll go from there.”
And with Poland playing in Ostrava, barely an hour’s drive from the country’s hockey heartlands in Silesia and Malopolskie, he’s expecting some enthusiastic support to lift the team.
“It's going to be full of Polish fans,” he smiled. “It’s going to be wild and I think that’s going to help us. That crowd will be really loud for us and it’s going to help us get points.”
Under the guidance of Slovak head coach Robert Kalaber, the Poles won Division IB on home ice in 2022, then grabbed promotion from Division IA a year later, beating Italy – Mike Keenan and all – to second place in the group.
That ended a 22-year absence from the top table and the excitement has been building ever since.
Team captain Krystian Dziubinski has been part of that journey throughout. Now 35, the Unia Oswiecim forward has seen a surge of interest in the game this season.
“People are paying more attention” he said. “Some sponsors came to the [Polish Ice Hockey] Federation.
“Even in just one year, it's looking better. but we need to stay there for one more year, then one more year. That would give our younger players a chance to play in stronger leagues.”
Even a year ago, head coach Kalaber was hoping to see precisely these opportunities.
“We have some young players who are really good,” he said after winning promotion in Nottingham last May. “They should be in better leagues. This tournament is a chance for them to go to bigger clubs and develop as young players at a higher level.”
At present, Poland has three players in the Czech league: Litvinov’s 24-year-old forward Pavel Zygmunt, experienced Aron Chmielevski, a Czech champion in recent seasons with Ocelari Trinec but recovering from an injury-hit season that limited him to 13 games this term, and 22-year-old Kamil Walega, a stand-out on the promotion-winning roster who earned a move to Trinec this season.
Goalie John Murray, American born but a stalwart of Polish hockey for 10 years, is certainly seeing changes.
“I believe they said that crowds [in the Polish championship] were up 30% on last year as a ballpark figure,” he said. “We’ve had a little bit more media coverage than prior as well, but we could still do more. When I first went to Poland 10 years ago, the league wasn’t as good as it is now, but we did have more TV coverage.”
He’s coming off a busy season – his GKS Katowice team made the national finals, losing to Dziubinski’s Unia – and admitted that the warm-up games had been a struggle. The last five games have brought defeats against Slovenia (twice), Great Britain (twice) and Slovakia, with just four goals scored in that time.
“We can’t say we’re playing too spectacular,” he said. “But we’re ambitious. We’re just waiting for that spark to come. Right now, it’s about the process, not the results.”
The final preparation game takes place against Denmark in Sosnowiec on Tuesday, then it’s time for the real work to start. Poland plays its first elite pool game for 22 years on Saturday against Latvia.
Expectations are modest, but there’s genuine hope that, like Austria in 2019, this could be the start of a longer stay.
“We're pretty realistic,” said Murray. “We want to do enough to be able to maintain. We know we need to come up with points with Kazakhstan and/or France. Maybe a few points here or there from another team.”
Dziubinski is also focused on survival. “We're trying to catch up,” he said. “We know that we’re not going to get it perfect in every game but we know where we can create chances and we’ll go from there.”
And with Poland playing in Ostrava, barely an hour’s drive from the country’s hockey heartlands in Silesia and Malopolskie, he’s expecting some enthusiastic support to lift the team.
“It's going to be full of Polish fans,” he smiled. “It’s going to be wild and I think that’s going to help us. That crowd will be really loud for us and it’s going to help us get points.”