Polish league reaches the play-offs

Regular season - standings

On February 6th the regular season of the Polish hockey league ended. Ten teams started out in the competition on September 10th, playing four times against each team (twice at home, twice away) and after 36 rounds they were divided. The first eight teams will fight for the Polish title in the play-offs and two unsuccessful teams which will play relegation round.

ComArch Cracovia from Krakow was the winner of the regular round in Poland, that participates in the IIHF World Championship Division I. Cracovia, that is financially the best situated organization in Poland, won 86 points in the 36 games. Krakow won 26 games in regulation and scored the most goals in the whole league - 178. The other three teams that start the play-offs on the home ice, are GKS Tychy with 78 points, Aksam Unia Oswiecin with 74 points and JKH GKS Jastrzębie with 66 points. Those four teams had also the right to choose its opponent for the 1st round of play-offs. This is the way how the opponents are being set in the play-offs.

On the 5th place, five points short of Jastrzębie was Ciarko KH from Sanok (61 points). 6th was a team from the port city Gdańsk - Stocznowiec, that had 51 points. MMKS Podhale Nowy Targ followed with 40 points. In spite of the fact that the name of this team is almost the same, it is not the same team as last years champion from Nowy Targ, who is also the most successful Polish team in history. The team MMKS, according to the name a so called youth club, played in the 1st Polish league and after financial problems of the extraklasa league for Nowy Targ came to play the top league as a replacement. The last team, that managed to advance to the play-offs, is KH Zagłębie from Sosnowiec, that gathered 40 points.

Quite early after the start of the season it became clear, who will play just in the relegation round. KS KTH Krynica was 13 points short of advancing to the play-offs and the last team, Akuna Naprzód from Janow, stopped to think about the title even sooner. They gained only 15 points and lost 31 out of 36 games in regulation.

Team stats after the Regular season

Scored goals: 1. Cracovia 178, 2. Jastrzębie 167, 3. Oswiecim 158, 4. Tychy 150, 5. Sanok 139, 6. Gdańsk 131, 7. Sosnowiec 116, 8. Nowy Targ 113, 9. Krynica 105, 10. Janów 94.

Allowed goals: 1. Cracovia 83, 2. Tychy 89, 3. Oswiecim 90, 4. Jastrzębie 99, 5. Sanok 116, 6. Gdańsk 143, 7. Sosnowiec 156, 8. Nowy Targ 165, 9. Krynica 194, 10. Janów 216.

Power play goals: 1. Jastrzębie 51, 2. Sanok 48, 3. Cracovia 46, 4. Oswiecim 42, 5. Nowy Targ 38, 6. Sosnowiec 36, 7. Tychy 35, 8. Gdańsk 31, 9. Krynica 23, 10. Janów 22.

Shorthanded goals: 1. Gdańsk 10, 2. Cracovia a Sanok oba 9, 4. Tychy, Nowy Targ and Oswiecim všichni 8, 7. Krynica 4, 8. Sosnowiec a Jastrzębie oba 3, 10. Janów 1.

Penalty minutes: 1. Janów 378 PM, 2. Cracovia 460 PM, 3. Jastrzębie 489 PM, 4. Tychy 521 PM, 5. Krynica 557 PM, 6. Oswiecim 570 PM, 7. Sosnowiec 580 PM, 8. Gdańsk 603 PM, 9. Sanok 605 PM, 10. Nowy Targ 731.

Polish league has an average attendance of less than 1000 fans per game. The highest number of spectators has Sanok with 1595, GKS Tychy follows with 1067 fans per game. These are the only clubs beating the 1000 level. The winner of the regular season, Crakovia Krakow averaged only 384 spectators per game, the smallest audience was in Gdańsk;145.


Now the Polish league will continue with the play-offs. In Poland the teams at the first four spots after the regular round can choose their opponent for the 1st Round in the play-offs. And what is more, there is a beneficiation rule for every play-offs round. Every team that was more successful in the regular season in four mutual games, basically leads 1:0 in the series already before its start.

The play-offs in the Polish hockey league started on February 9th and the latest deadline when we get to know the name of the Polish champion, is March 23rd, 2011. In the 2nd play-offs round there are two semifinal rounds and also the battles for the 5th - 8th place. The third play-off rounds according to Polish way means the finals, 3rd place series, 5th place series and 7th round series.

Along with the start of quarter final series, also the battle for the 9th spot starts. It will be very tough because only its winner will play in the Polish league also in the next season. The last, 10th team, relegates directly and in the 2011-12 season will play in the 1st league. The battles start on February 10th and the winner will be known not later than on February 25th.

As we have written above, the opponents for the quarter final round are not given according to the standings after the regular season. The more successful teams can pick its opponent. The opponents are as follow: Cracovia – Sosnowiec, Tychy – Gdańsk, Oswiecim – Nowy Targ and Jastrzębie – Sanok. All the teams, that start at home, are favorites. They all have a beneficiation 1-0 in the series because they are better in mutual games comparison.

TV coverage

The public channel TVP Sport, which is one of the media partners of the Polish league, will make several live coverage from the play-offs. Between February 9th and March 23rd, there should be broadcasted live five games from the quarterfinals series, seven games from the semifinal series and all the games in the final series best of seven. During the regular season the live broadcasts are not shown regularly.

 

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