Comarch Cracovia play their final game of this CHL season today in Sweden against Farjestad Karlstad, but their presence has made a huge impression on the competiton.
by Dawid Szewczyk
After losing to Sparta Prague in heartbreaking fashinon on 26 August, Comarch Cracovia were eliminated from this season's Champions Hockey League. The Polish team has one more game left to play against Farjastad Karlstad on Saturday afternoon, but the only thing that will be on the line is honour. Nevertheless, this was a historic moment for Polish hockey. Cracovia’s players have proven that they can play against the best teams in Europe and, for sure, have some of the best hockey fans in Europe.
Krakow inaugurated their Champions Hockey League season with two home games against world-class teams from the Czech Republic and Sweden. A lot of Cracovia’s fans bought the tickets and showed up at Tauron Arena Krakow, where the “Pasy” played their CHL games. The home game against Sparta on 17 August was watched live by 7124 spectators, with 6209 more coming to watch Farjestad two days later – the average of 6666 ranks third out of the CHL's 48 teams in the group stage. If not for strong competition in the form of the Olympic Games and Champions League football qualifiers involving a Polish team, more fans would have surely attended the games in Tauron Arena.
“I’m very impressed with the venue and very happy that so many people have come to support Cracovia,” said Champions Hockey League CEO Martin Baumann after Cracovia’s first game in the CHL. That night, Baumann was one of Cracovia’s supporters.
The first two games in the CHL for Cracovia were very tough. The “Pasy”, in their first ever game in Europe's elite club hockey competition, lost 7-2 to Sparta, the runners up of the Czech league. As Baumann said, however, this score was a little bit unfair. The Polish team played very good first two periods, but in the last part of the game, Sparta dominated Cracovia and Tomas Netik recorded the first hat-trick of this CHL season.
The game with Farjestad was a bit more even. After the first period of play we had a 1-1 tie following Damian Kapica’s goal. Three fast goals by the Swedish team in the beginning of the second period resolved the fate of the game and Cracovia lost to Farjestad 5-1.
For sure, the best game of the Polish champions in CHL so far took place in Prague. Cracovia again lost to Sparta, but this time only 5-4, and the Czech team scored the game-winning goal in the last five minutes of regulation time – Netik again. Krakow played strongly, managed to tie the score twice after a very poor start – after 60 seconds of play, the “Pasy” was already losing 2-0. Cracovia's biggest hero that night was netminder Rafal Radziszewski, who made a CHL-record 60 saves!
“We could have tied the game again. We took a bad penalty in final minutes of the game, and a team like Sparta will take advantage of a chance like that. But we have nothing to be ashamed of. We took the challange and played a really good game. We were successful on offence and on defence,” said Radziszewski after the game in Prague.
Cracovia’s players had also some loud support in their first ever CHL road game. More than 500 fans from Krakow came to O2 Arena in Prague to support their team. We will probably have the same situation in the Cracovia’s last game in this season of Champions Hockey League in Karlstad.
Poland proved that they have some pretty good hockey potential. Next season, the Polish champions will again play in the CHL. Who knows – maybe it will be Cracovia again. One thing we know for sure – year after year, Polish teams are getting stronger and the fans cannot wait for the next Champions Hockey League games in Poland.