| Poland | |
| Badge: | Herb Polski.svg |
| Badge Size: | 155px |
| Nickname: | Polish: Orły (The Eagles) |
| Association: | Polish Ice Hockey Federation |
| General Manager: | Leszek Laszkiewicz |
| Coach: | Róbert Kaláber |
| Asst Coach: | Marek Batkiewicz Grzegorz Klich |
| Captain: | Krystian Dziubiński |
| Most Games: | Henryk Gruth (248) |
| Top Scorer: | Wiesław Jobczyk (88) |
| Most Points: | Marcin Kolusz (151) |
| Iihf Code: | POL |
| Iihf Max: | 19 |
| Iihf Max Date: | 2003 |
| Iihf Min: | 25 |
| Iihf Min Date: | 2014 |
| First Game: | 13–1 |
| Largest Win: | 21–1 |
| Largest Loss: | 20–0 |
| World Champ Apps: | 60 |
| World Champ First: | 1930 |
| World Champ Best: | 4th (1931, 1932) |
| Olympic Apps: | 13 |
| Olympic First: | 1928 |
| Regional Name: | IIHF European Championships |
| Regional Cup Apps: | 3 |
| Regional Cup First: | 1926 |
| Regional Cup Best: | (1929) |
| Record: | 516–564–91 |
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 21st 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 eight countries never to have played below the Division I (former B Pool) level. As of 2024 the Polish national team plays at the top level 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 were in Division I after being relegated in 2002. Poland made a return to the top division of the World Championship for 2024.
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]
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.
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 Poles ended up losing 5–3 and saw their hopes for 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 it 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. They then remained in Division I until they were relegated to Division IB in 2018, the lowest they had ever played at. The White Eagles finally returned to the elite level after finishing runner-up in group A in 2023. They will play in the 2024 IIHF World Championship in Group B.
| Games | GP | W | OW | T | OL | L | GF | GA | Coach | Captain | Finish | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1928 St. Moritz | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 | ? | Tadeusz Adamowski | 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 | Mieczysław Kasprzycki | ? | Round-robin | 6th | |
 1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 15 | 22 | Mieczysław Palus, Wladyslaw Wiro-Kiro | Józef Kurek | Consolation round | 8th | |
| 1960 Squaw Valley | did not participate | ||||||||||||
 1964 Innsbruck | 8 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 41 | 15 | Gary Hughes | Józef Kurek | Consolation round | 9th | |
 1968 Grenoble | did not participate | ||||||||||||
 1972 Sapporo | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 13 | 39 | Anatoli Yegorov, Mieczysław Chmura | Ludwik Czachowski | Final Round | 6th | |
| 1976 Innsbruck | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 16 | 41 | Józef Kurek | Robert Góralczyk | Final Round | 6th | |
| 1980 Lake Placid | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 15 | 23 | Czeslaw Borowicz | Stefan Chowaniec | First round | 7th | |
| 1984 Sarajevo | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 20 | 44 | Emil Nikodemowicz | Henryk Gruth | 7th place game | 8th | |
 1988 Calgary | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 12 | 15 | Leszek Lejczyk, Jerzy Mruk | Henryk Gruth | 9th place game | 10th | |
| 1992 Albertville | 9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 25 | 47 | Leszek Lejczyk, Jerzy Mruk | Henryk Gruth | 11th place match | 11th | |
| did not qualify | |||||||||||||
| 1998 Nagano | |||||||||||||
| 2002 Salt Lake City | |||||||||||||
| 2006 Turin | |||||||||||||
| 2010 Vancouver | |||||||||||||
 2014 Sochi | |||||||||||||
 2018 Pyeongchang | |||||||||||||
 2022 Beijing | |||||||||||||
| Future event | |||||||||||||
| Games | GP | W | T | L | GF | GA | Coach | Captain | Finish | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1910–1925 | did not participate. | ||||||||||
| 1926 Davos | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 7 | ? | ? | Consolation round 6–7 place game | 6th | |
| 1927 Wien | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 9 | ? | ? | Round-robin | 4th | |
 1929 Budapest | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 3 | ? | ? | Final | ||
| 1932 Berlin | did not participate. | ||||||||||
Roster for the 2024 IIHF World Championship.[4] [5]
Head coach: Róbert Kaláber
| No. | Pos. | Name | Height | Weight | Birthdate | Team | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | D | 1.86m (06.1feet) | 90abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 20 November 1992 |  GKS Tychy | ||
| 4 | D | 1.81m (05.94feet) | 83abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 20 May 1988 | JKH GKS Jastrzębie | ||
| 5 | F | 1.8m (05.9feet) | 86abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 27 December 1991 | GKS Tychy | ||
| 6 | D | 1.84m (06.04feet) | 84abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 16 June 1994 | JKH GKS Jastrzębie | ||
| 10 | F | 1.81m (05.94feet) | 82abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 26 October 1995 | GKS Katowice | ||
| 12 | D | 1.87m (06.14feet) | 90abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 26 January 1988 | GKS Katowice | ||
| 14 | F | 1.77m (05.81feet) | 67abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 21 September 1999 | JKH GKS Jastrzębie | ||
| 15 | F | 1.71m (05.61feet) | 77abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 28 August 1995 | Podhale Nowy Targ | ||
| 16 | F | 1.9m (06.2feet) | 96abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 19 November 1999 |  HC Litvínov | ||
| 17 | D | 1.82m (05.97feet) | 88abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 20 September 1989 | JKH GKS Jastrzębie | ||
| 18 | F | Grzegorz Pasiut – A | 1.85m (06.07feet) | 92abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 7 May 1987 | GKS Katowice | |
| 20 | D | Marcin Kolusz – A | 1.86m (06.1feet) | 87abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 18 January 1985 | JKH GKS Jastrzębie | |
| 21 | F | 1.83m (06feet) | 80abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 21 July 2000 | HC Oceláři Třinec | ||
| 28 | F | 1.86m (06.1feet) | 90abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 29 July 1992 | GKS Katowice | ||
| 31 | G | 1.85m (06.07feet) | 99abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 4 July 1987 | GKS Katowice | ||
| 33 | G | 1.89m (06.2feet) | 90abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 17 March 1994 | GKS Tychy | ||
| 34 | F | 1.82m (05.97feet) | 86abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 14 May 2004 | Prince Albert Raiders | ||
| 51 | D | 1.93m (06.33feet) | 93abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 12 March 1991 | GKS Katowice | ||
| 61 | F | Krystian Dziubiński – C | 1.81m (05.94feet) | 86abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 28 May 1988 | TH Unia Oświęcim | |
| 69 | D | 1.82m (05.97feet) | 89abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 24 August 1989 | GKS Tychy | ||
| 71 | D | 1.81m (05.94feet) | 90abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 30 June 1989 | Ravensburg Towerstars | ||
| 72 | G | 1.8m (05.9feet) | 75abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 31 March 1994 | EHC Freiburg | ||
| 80 | D | 1.87m (06.14feet) | 92abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 12 April 2003 | GKS Katowice | ||
| 88 | F | 1.83m (06feet) | 83abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 17 February 1998 | GKS Tychy | ||
| 92 | F | 1.81m (05.94feet) | 87abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 12 July 1986 | JKH GKS Jastrzębie | ||
| 98 | F | 1.85m (06.07feet) | 80abbr=onNaNabbr=on | 14 September 1998 | KH Zagłębie Sosnowiec |
Players who have played in the NHL and the Polish national team
| Year | Name | Position | Team | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993–2006 | RW | Boston Bruins Edmonton Oilers New York Islanders Montreal Canadiens Toronto Maple Leafs | ||
| 1996–2006 | LW | New Jersey Devils Columbus Blue Jackets Pittsburgh Penguins New York Rangers Boston Bruins Calgary Flames | ||
| 2015–2016 | C | New Jersey Devils St. Louis Blues |
Polish players selected in the NHL Entry Draft
| Year | Name | Overall | Team | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 91st overall | Washington Capitals | |||
| 106th overall | Boston Bruins | |||
| 1993 | 65th overall | New Jersey Devils | ||
| 218th overall | Florida Panthers | |||
| 102nd overall | Chicago Blackhawks | |||
| 56th overall | Detroit Red Wings | |||
| 19th overall | Phoenix Coyotes | |||
| 102nd overall | Detroit Red Wings | |||
| 135th overall | New Jersey Devils | |||
| 157th overall | Minnesota Wild | |||
| 21st overall | Colorado Avalanche | |||
| 128th overall | Detroit Red Wings | |||
| 252nd overall | Toronto Maple Leafs | |||
| 136th overall | Columbus Blue Jackets | |||
| 199th overall | Montreal Canadiens | |||
| 163rd overall | Arizona Coyotes |
Updated as of 9 November 2024.[6] Defunct national teams are listed in italics.
| Opponent | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | GF | GA | GD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 3 | +2 | ||
| 60 | 26 | 3 | 31 | 183 | 181 | +2 | ||
| 17 | 4 | 0 | 13 | 38 | 77 | +39 | ||
| 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 29 | 6 | +23 | ||
| 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 2 | +25 | ||
| 25 | 0 | 1 | 24 | 22 | 175 | -153 | ||
| 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 79 | 11 | +68 | ||
| 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 4 | +29 | ||
| 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | ||
| 44 | 2 | 2 | 40 | 58 | 336 | -278 | ||
| 32 | 18 | 3 | 11 | 134 | 102 | +32 | ||
| 71 | 35 | 13 | 23 | 302 | 234 | +68 | ||
| 20 | 18 | 1 | 1 | 99 | 36 | +63 | ||
| 52 | 5 | 8 | 39 | 107 | 264 | −157 | ||
| 54 | 21 | 6 | 27 | 146 | 154 | -8 | ||
| 54 | 16 | 7 | 31 | 161 | 192 | -31 | ||
| 38 | 10 | 2 | 26 | 113 | 133 | -20 | ||
| 68 | 36 | 6 | 26 | 211 | 150 | +61 | ||
| 58 | 32 | 4 | 22 | 190 | 145 | +45 | ||
| 42 | 34 | 2 | 6 | 214 | 98 | +116 | ||
| 22 | 2 | 1 | 19 | 43 | 84 | -41 | ||
| 21 | 5 | 0 | 16 | 50 | 72 | -22 | ||
| 22 | 18 | 0 | 4 | 126 | 47 | +79 | ||
| 40 | 35 | 2 | 3 | 209 | 85 | +124 | ||
| 77 | 39 | 7 | 31 | 316 | 243 | +73 | ||
| 62 | 50 | 5 | 7 | 390 | 106 | +284 | ||
| 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 2 | +8 | ||
| 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 2 | +11 | ||
| 9 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 12 | 51 | −39 | ||
| 28 | 9 | 0 | 19 | 59 | 78 | -19 | ||
| 15 | 10 | 0 | 5 | 59 | 32 | +27 | ||
| 33 | 1 | 0 | 32 | 43 | 321 | -278 | ||
| 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 1 | +8 | ||
| 37 | 5 | 4 | 28 | 62 | 232 | −170 | ||
| 46 | 20 | 6 | 20 | 159 | 165 | -6 | ||
| 43 | 18 | 2 | 23 | 115 | 132 | -17 | ||
| 36 | 6 | 2 | 28 | 43 | 191 | −148 | ||
| 21 | 19 | 1 | 1 | 139 | 53 | +86 | ||
| Total | 1 171 | 516 | 91 | 564 | 4 010 | 4 202 | -182 |