Poland men's national ice hockey team

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 and only time Poland ever won against the Soviets and 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.^[2]

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.

At the 2001 World Championships in France, coached by Wiktor Pysz [pl], Poland earned promotion from Division I for the first time in ten years.^[3] Playing in the top tier at the 2002 World Championship in Sweden, Poland placed 14th and was relegated back to Division I.^[4] Hosting 2006 Winter Olympics qualification in Nowy Targ, Poland placed first in Group E but not advance beyond the next round.^[5] Four years later, hosting 2010 Winter Olympics qualification in Sanok, Poland placed second and did not advance.^[6]

Leszek Laszkiewicz was named Poland's general manager in 2019.^[7] In his first World Championship as manager, Poland placed second in 2019, missing promotion from Division I to the top tier when losing their final game in overtime to Romania.^[8] Scheduled to host Group B of the 2020 World Championship in Katowice, the tournament was postponed to 2021 then cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[9] Hosting the 2022 tournament in Katowice, Poland placed first in Group B and promoted to Division I A.^[10] Placing second in 2023 earned Poland promotion to the top division in 2024,^[11] their first appearance in the top division since 2002 when Laszkiewicz played.^[7] With an eighth-place finish at the 2024 World Championship, Poland was relegated back to Division I A.^[12] Placing fifth in 2025, Poland remained in Division I A.^[13]

Updated as of 8 November 2025.^[23] Defunct national teams are listed in italics.

More information Opponent, Played ...

Opponent	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	GF	GA	GD
Australia	1	1	0	0	5	3	+2
Austria	60	26	3	31	183	181	+2
Belarus	17	4	0	13	38	77	+39
Belgium	5	4	1	0	29	6	+23
Bulgaria	2	2	0	0	27	2	+25
Canada	25	0	1	24	22	175	-153
China	6	6	0	0	79	11	+68
Croatia	5	5	0	0	33	4	+29
Czech Republic	1	0	1	0	2	2	0
Czechoslovakia	44	2	2	40	58	336	-278
Denmark	32	18	3	11	134	102	+32
East Germany	71	35	13	23	302	234	+68
Estonia	20	18	1	1	99	36	+63
Finland	52	5	8	39	107	264	−157
France	54	21	6	27	146	154	-8
Germany	54	16	7	31	161	192	-31
Great Britain	39	11	2	26	114	133	-19
Hungary	69	37	6	26	214	151	+63
Italy	62	35	4	23	204	153	+51
Japan	42	34	2	6	214	98	+116
Kazakhstan	22	2	1	19	43	84	-41
Latvia	21	5	0	16	50	72	-22
Lithuania	24	20	0	4	130	48	+82
Netherlands	40	35	2	3	209	85	+124
Norway	77	39	7	31	316	243	+73
Romania	62	50	5	7	390	106	+284
Serbia	1	1	0	0	10	2	+8
Serbia and Montenegro	1	1	0	0	13	2	+11
Slovakia	9	0	1	8	12	51	−39
Slovenia	30	10	0	20	64	82	-18
South Korea	15	10	0	5	59	32	+27
Soviet Union	33	1	0	32	43	321	-278
Spain	2	2	0	0	9	1	+8
Sweden	37	5	4	28	62	232	−170
Switzerland	46	20	6	20	159	165	-6
Ukraine	46	20	2	24	122	138	-16
United States	36	6	2	28	43	191	−148
Yugoslavia	21	19	1	1	139	53	+86
Total	1 184	526	91	567	4 044	4 222	-168

Close