Poland men's national ice hockey team

Poland

Nickname(s)	The Eagles
Association	Polish Ice Hockey Federation
Head coach	Ted Nolan
Assistants	Torbjörn Johansson Stefan Lunner
Captain	Marcin Kolusz
Most games	Henryk Gruth (292)
Top scorer	Andrzej Zabawa (99)
Most points	Leszek Laszkiewicz (150)
Team colors
IIHF code	POL
Ranking
Current IIHF	20
Highest IIHF	19 (2003)
Lowest IIHF	25 (2014)
First international
Austria 13–1 Poland  (Davos, Switzerland; 11 January 1926)
Biggest win
Poland 21–1 China  (Eindhoven, Netherlands; 26 March 1993)
Biggest defeat
Soviet Union 20–0 Poland  (Moscow, Soviet Union; 11 April 1973)
IIHF World Championships
Appearances	56 (first in 1930)
Best result	4th (1931)
IIHF European Championships
Appearances	3 (first in 1926)
Best result	(1929)
Olympics
Appearances	13 (first in 1928)
International record (W–L–T)
421–511–88

The Poland national men's ice hockey team is the national ice hockey team of Poland, and a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation. They are ranked 20th in the world in the IIHF World Rankings, but prior to the 1980s they were ranked as high as 6th internationally. They are one of only 8 countries never to have played below the Division I (former B Pool) level. Currently the Polish national team plays at the Division IA level, the second tier of the World Championship.

Poland has competed in the Olympics thirteen times, most recently in 1992, with their best result being fourth place in 1932. They have been a regular participant of the World Championship, first appearing in 1930 and having appeared in all but one tournament since 1955. They frequently played in the top division, though have been in Division I since being relegated in 2002.

History

Poland at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, their first appearance at the Winter Olympics. They finished ninth.

Poland was a regular participant of the early Winter Olympics, first competing at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, where they finished ninth out of eleven teams. They would appear at ever Winter Olympics until 1956, with their best finish being fourth in 1932.

Financed by state coal money from the 1950s to the 1970s the Polish hockey team was a regular at the top level upsetting the Swedes, Finns, and Czechoslovaks from time to time. They hosted the World Championship for the only time in 1976, with the matches taking place in Katowice. At this tournament Poland defeated the Soviet Union 6–4 in their opening match, the first time Poland ever won against the Soviets and what is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in international hockey history. While Poland finished seventh and was relegated for the following year, their victory against the USSR helped prevent them from winning gold for only the second time in 13 years.^[1]

The national team in 2006.

In the Olympics earlier that year, Poland played 5 matches in the top division, but lost all of them. In the first game, the team managed four goals on the West Germany but it was not enough as they lost 7-4. Four days later, after being destroyed by the Soviet Union, the Poles took on Czechoslovakia who dominated the whole game throughout and won 7-1, but after the drug testing, the officials found that one of the Czech players tested positive for doping and they awarded Poland with a 1-0 victory, although they didn't receive any points in the standings. With only two games left and no points in the standings, Poland had no shot at a medal, but still played the last two games against the United States and Finland, and lost 7-2 and 7-1 respectively.

Poland managed to clean up a bit over four years and played well during the 1980 Olympics and finished seventh out of twelve teams. They managed to pull off a huge upset in their first game by beating Finland 5-4, who would eventually advance to the medal round. In their next game, they played Canada and hoped to complete an even bigger upset. The Canadians didn't let this happen and beat the Poles 5-1. In the third game, Poland took on the five time Gold Medalists, The Soviet Union. The players knew that this would be a challenge because they had played the Soviets many times before and had lost by usually very lopsided scores, such as 8-3, 9-3, 16-1, and 20-0. The Polish team, however, had also beaten the Soviets once in the 1976 World Championship and some of the players from that game were still on the team. The team tried to keep the Soviets down, but it was too much and the USSR stormed to an 8-1 win.

Poland at the 2017 World Championship Division IA tournament in Ukraine. They finished fourth.

With their toughest games out of the way, Poland would have one more chance to try to get to the Medal Round. They took on the Netherlands and went down early in the first period but managed to tie it about four minutes later. The Dutch team scored twice more in the period to lead 3-1. Polish hero Wieslaw Jobczyk (who scored a hat trick in the 1976 upset against USSR) scored to put Poland within one goal but the Netherlands stormed back to get two more goals before the third period to make it 5-2. The Polish ended up losing 5-3 and saw their hopes of the Medal round come to an end. They had one more game against Japan, who had not won any games in the tournament and only tied once. Poland burst out in the first period and scored 3 goals before twenty minutes had ended. They scored two more goals and Japan seemed out of it. The final score was 5-1 for Poland. The team's final record was 2-3-0 and received 4 points in the standings.

When Communist rule ended in 1989, the Polish national team began a slow decline in international play. They reached the Olympics in 1992, the most recent time they have played there, and finished eleventh out of twelve teams. During the 1990s the first two Polish-born and trained players were selected in the NHL Entry Draft: Mariusz Czerkawski was selected in the 1991 by the Boston Bruins, and Krzysztof Oliwa in 1993 by the New Jersey Devils; Oliwa won the Stanley Cup with the Devils in 2000, the first and only Pole to do so.

Poland last competed at the Elite level in 2002 World Championship, where they finished fourteenth and were relegated. Since then they have remained in Division I, but have not earned promotion back to the top level, though they have finished just outside of promotion several times.

Tournament record

Olympic Games

Olympic record

Games	GP	W	OW	T	OL	L	GF	GA	Coach	Captain	Finish	Rank
1928 St. Moritz	2	0	0	1	0	1	4	5	?	?	First Round	9th
1932 Lake Placid	6	0	0	0	0	6	3	34	Tadeusz Sachs	?	First Round	4th
1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen	3	1	0	0	0	2	11	12	Aleksander Tupalski, Lucjan Kulej	?	First Round	9th
1948 St. Moritz	8	2	0	0	0	6	29	97	Zbigniew Kasprzak	?	Round-robin	6th (7th)
1952 Oslo	8	2	0	1	0	5	21	56	Mieczyslaw Kasprzycki	?	Round-robin	6th
1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo	5	2	0	0	0	3	15	22	Mieczyslaw Palus, Wladyslaw Wiro-Kiro	?	Consolation Round	8th
1960 Squaw Valley	Did not participate
1964 Innsbruck	8	6	0	0	0	2	41	15	Gary Hughes	?	Consolation Round	9th
1968 Grenoble	Did not participate
1972 Sapporo	6	1	0	0	0	5	13	39	Anatolij Jegorov, Mieczyslaw Chmura	?	Final Round	6th
1976 Innsbruck	6	2	0	0	0	4	16	41	Józef Kurek	?	Final Round	6th
1980 Lake Placid	5	2	0	0	0	3	15	23	Czeslaw Borowicz	?	First Round	7th
1984 Sarajevo	6	1	0	0	0	5	20	44	Emil Nikodemowicz	?	7th place game	8th
1988 Calgary	6	1	0	1	0	4	12	15	Leszek Lejczyk, Jerzy Mruk	?	9th place game	10th
1992 Albertville	9	2	0	0	0	5	25	47	Leszek Lejczyk, Jerzy Mruk	?	11th Place Match	11th
1994 Lillehammer	Did not qualify since

World Championship

European Championships

• 1926 – 7th place
• 1927 – 4th place
• 1929 – Won silver medal

Team

Current roster

Roster for the 2018 Winter Olympics qualification tournament.^[2]

• Head coach: Jacek Płachta^[3]

Pos.	No.	Player	Team
GK	1	Kamil Kosowski	GKS Tychy
GK	30	Przemysław Odrobny	Milton Keynes Lightning
GK	29	Rafał Radziszewski	Comarch Cracovia
D	17	Mateusz Bryk	GKS Tychy
D	12	Paweł Dronia	Fischtown Pinguins
D	6	Michał Kotlorz	GKS Tychy
D	2	Maciej Kruczek	Comarch Cracovia
D	9	Bartlomiej Pociecha	GKS Tychy
D	28	Mateusz Rompkowski	Comarch Cracovia
D	4	Patryk Wajda	Comarch Cracovia
F	3	Adam Bagiński	GKS Tychy
F	22	Mateusz Bepierszcz	GKS Tychy
F	8	Aron Chmielewski	HC Oceláři Třinec
F	19	Krystian Dziubinski	Comarch Cracovia
F	27	Radosław Galant	GKS Tychy
F	14	Kacper Guzik	Comarch Cracovia
F	26	Marcin Kolusz (C)	GKS Tychy
F	25	Mikołaj Łopuski	Milton Keynes Lightning
F	16	Tomasz Malasiński	Swindon Wildcats
F	18	Grzegorz Pasiut	Comarch Cracovia
F	11	Maciej Urbanowicz	Comarch Cracovia
F	15	Patryk Wronka	Podhale Nowy Targ
F	10	Krzysztof Zapała	Podhale Nowy Targ

Former players in NHL

Players who have played in the NHL and the Polish national team

NHL Entry Draft

Players from Poland selected in the NHL Entry Draft

Year	Name	Overall	Team
1991	Mariusz Czerkawski	106th overall	Boston Bruins
1993	Krzysztof Oliwa	65th overall	New Jersey Devils
1993	Patryk Pysz	102th overall	Chicago Blackhawks
2003	Marcin Kolusz	157th overall	Minnesota Wild

Notable players

• Henryk Gruth - Most games played for national team (292)
• Andrzej Zabawa - Most goals scored (99)
• Leszek Laszkiewicz - 96 games played, 81 total points
• Mariusz Czerkawski
• Krzysztof Oliwa
• Marcin Kolusz

References

External links

• Official website
• IIHF profile