Investments in infrastructure are mostly made in places where hockey is popular, but who will stop doing it in other cities?

I’ll start with an “epochal discovery”: life can be perverse. More precisely, the fact is that before Polish hockey players were promoted to the hockey elite. A text was published on the gazeta.pl portal, which basically discredited this discipline in its native edition. Because it’s poorly managed. Because it interests only the inhabitants of two voivodships – Śląskie and Małopolskie; residual in other regions. Because, for example, in Wrocław and elsewhere – and we’re talking about big centers in general – they don’t know who the Polish hockey champion is, even if they know who the basketball or volleyball champion is. Because the infrastructural facilities, from the times of the People’s Republic of Poland, are terrible. In fact, our country’s hockey champion is the least important champion when it comes to team disciplines.

Theoretically, one could agree – albeit painfully – with all of this. With pain, because I love this discipline – so fast, spectacular, full of emotions – and I have watched it for years. In fact, it has been mismanaged in the past. Maybe, eg. because the format of the people who took the presidency did not correspond to the challenges that this discipline presented to them. For many years, my editorial colleague Włodzimierz Sowiński wrote about it (and still writes), if not for the love of hockey.

To read also in the Hockey category:

It is also true that hockey is most popular in Upper Silesia and Lesser Poland. However, the fact that he stayed on the surface of life is hard (who exactly?) to blame. Opportunities were and are in Warsaw, Łódź, Gdańsk, Toruń – hockey is played everywhere, and even clubs from these cities played a leading role in Poland. It’s just that they are hesitant to take advantage of these opportunities.

Also impossible to agree: side objects, it smells a bit of communist Poland, both in quality and quantity. Although this is also changing, because beautiful ice rinks have been built – or renovated – in Katowice (Jantor in Janów, but this part of Katowice is the domain of … Ruch Chorzów), in Tychy, recently in Bytom and most recently in Sosnowiec.

We can deduce that investments are made in infrastructure mainly where hockey is popular. But who will forbid doing this in other cities? Indeed, we need many more facilities, as the vice-president of the international hockey federation, the Czech Petr Briza, pointed out a few weeks ago. While in Bytom, he pointed out that there are 10 million people in the Czech Republic and there are 183 indoor skating rinks.

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Meanwhile, in Poland, where there are more than 37 million people, there are 25 rinks. Without the development of the base, the creation of new rinks, the development of hockey is impossible. Infrastructure is needed, especially in big cities. This is the basis for hundreds of children to skate and train, he concluded.

Someone will say that we are too poor to build ice rinks in every city. But could it not be treated as a simple investment in health? Because if it’s not hockey, then maybe ice figure skating. And if neither, then at least one ice rink for hundreds or thousands of people? Every day, all year ?

Well, back to the perversity of life: a few weeks after the publication of this text – as they say, it discredits almost everything related to hockey in Poland – our national team was promoted with great style to the group the most elitist in the world. She will play with the greatest – Canada, United States, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland. But also a bit smaller, like France, Germany, Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia. Of course, someone from this group will fall soon (the Elite World Championship is underway).

So what? Our team managed – perversely, and perhaps even out of spite? – entering salons, even if the discipline it represents is followed by the smell of communist Poland, poor management, poor infrastructure, geographically selective interest… We are dealing with cognitive dissonance. Of course, we wish it were even better, even more professional, with a touch of the West, but – let’s use a truism – to get it out, you have to put it in first. And be patient. Mirosław Minkina, president of the Polish Ice Hockey Association, is aware of this, after all, he is a very rational businessman.

And one more thread, also undoubtedly commercial. Few days have passed since the Nottingham championships, and the Polsat station triumphantly announced that it had acquired the rights to broadcast the Elite World Championships (as well as Division 1A, from which Poland was promoted) for 6 years. Where and where, but in a private station, the nose, the intuition, the speed of action and … the economic calculation decide. If that’s where they feel there’s potential in hockey, there’s got to be something there. And this thing cannot be linked to the People’s Republic of Poland.

In the photo: Polish hockey players broke into the top flight with a hit.
photo. polishhockey.eu

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