Doesn't seem to be a lot of activity in this part of HF Boards but was hoping someone might have information about the Poland league. On Elite Prospects the map shows eleven team logos but there are only nine teams listed in the standings.
Also, with the exception of Gdansk the teams appear to be clustered near Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Are there hockey clubs in Warsaw?
Poland doesn't offer a lot of governmental funding for winter sports - like a lot of countries globally - and the sports that do get funding are ones either popular or success (which tend to go hand in hand). So, for example, ski jumping is very successful in Polska and because they've gotten many Olympic medals that increases popularity and thus more funding overall. Volleyball is another sport which is very popular in the country and that's due to their international success (last time I chequed they were ranked 2nd overall in the world). But even then that sport is so far behind football (which is by far the most popular) and the international club isn't really that good on the international spectrum.
A lot of the clubs on the borders of Slovakia and Czechia are due to the fact for two reasons; one, those regions are right next to hockey craze nations and two, that is the mountainous (and coldest) region of Poland such as Zakopane and Sanok which actually speak a different form of Polish. Hockey popularity is growing and Mariusz Czerkawski has done a lot in terms of growing the sport. I actually think the hockey isn't too bad if you consider how insanely disorganised it is. When I mean disorganised, I am talking about how ridiculously regionalised it is like it is in Italia. No country will have any success if it is only played in like 20% of the entire country. And as I mentioned before, it might be like 8th or 9th most popular sport and there are huge gaps between the top 7 to eventually get to 8th. You have the likes of football, volleyball, ski jumping, tennis, handball, motor racing, basketball, boxing/MMA, and body-building.
One of the reasons why it is behind others is that there is still what I consider a "hidden" hatred for the Soviet Union and they saw hockey as one of "their sports". Stalin did a lot of bad things to Poland after the Nazis fled and when he came in to conquer the country, the Polish identity was crushed under communism. The only thing that kept the culture and tradition alive was the Catholic church and why majority of the country is still heavily Catholic. Those traumatic stories - like when my grandma told me - about how they had to hide in the wheat fields from the Soviet soldiers because they were raping the Polish women have been past down through the generations as that it's very Polish to do so. I would also theorise that those stories are one of the reason why the dislike for Russia has continued to persist. Plus Putin's actions aren't necessarily helping the cause and having your President's plane crash in Russian territory when he was going to honour Polish officers who Stalin killed just boils it even more. I still have a lot of family members and I am pretty sure there is at least one in every Polish family that actually despises Russia with their soul. I know some of my family members wouldn't watch the Sochi Olympics because it took place on Russian soil. These sociological reasons is another reason why hockey never was ever successful here compared to other ex-Soviet Union countries.