The first month of 2024 has come and gone. A new year means a fresh chance, especially in Polish hockey. January marks the transfer deadline for the Tauron Hokej Liga. Teams welcome some new faces, while saying goodbye to many others. In addition to our league recap, we will take a look back at each team’s transactions this month.

January Transfers

GKS Katowice: The defending champs only used one of their two January moves. They added Finnish forward Miro Lehtimäki. Lehtimäki has mostly played in the Mestis and HockeyEttan but does also have 43 games of Liiga experience. This will be his second trip to Poland, as he suited up briefly for KH Torun during the 2022 season.

Unia Oswiecim: Oswiecim picked up a Swedish forward to bolster their offense before the deadline. Elliot Lorraine joins the team after playing most of the year with Dunaújvárosi Acélbikák in the Erste Liga. He played with Sanok in the 2023 season, posting 16 points (8G-8A16PTS) in 20 games.

GKS Tychy: Like the other top clubs, Tychy sought to add one more forward to the mix. They added Estonian national team forward Mark Viitanen. Viitanen was in his second THL season. He scored 11 goals with Sanok this year. The 6’4 winger played with Torun in 2023 and had played in the Mestis previously.

JKH GKS Jastrzebie: Sitting in fourth place, Jastrzebie made the choice to add two North Americans before the deadline. The first addition was Canadian Conor MacEachern. The strong defender had been serving as an assistant captain with STS Sanok this season. He had 10 points (6G-4A-10PTS) in 34 games with the club. The team also added American Nick Ford. The forward had bounced around the ECHL and SPHL since graduating from Elmira College. To make room on the roster, the team said goodbye to Latvian forward Ričards Bernhards. Bernhards had 8 points (6G-2A-8PTS) in 24 games.

Podhale Nowy Targ: Podhale did not elect to use either of their two January additions.

KH Torun: Torun made one move to shore up their defense in Latvia defender Pauls Svars. The 5’11 defender had been playing with Dunaújvárosi Acélbikák the past two seasons. He has represented Latvia internationally and at the 2016 Men’s U18 World Championship.

Cracovia Krakow: Cracovia had maybe the two biggest moves of the deadline. The first was the addition of Canadian goaltender Mat Robson. The former Univerisity of Minnesota starter joined the squad with a career .895% in 36 American Hockey League games. He spent last season as the starting goalie with Anglet in the top French league. The club also added Finnish forward Aapo Alapuranen. Alapuranen mostly has spent his career in the HockeyEttan and Metsis, but had 32 points this year in the second level of Slovak hockey with HK Gladiators Trnava. The other big move was a negative, as the club did see their leading scorer, Martin Látal, depart. The Czech forward led the team in points with 31 (14G-17A-31PTS) in 32 games. Latal signed with Grenoble in France.

Zaglebie Sosnowiec: Sosnowiec has needed to improve their scoring depth all year and made two forward moves to close the year. The first move was Finnish forward Valtteri Niemi. Niemi has played in the Mestis for the past six years, recording 96 points in 169 games. They also added Czech forward Vlastimil Dostálek. The veteran right winger has played mainly in the Tipsport Extrliga and the Chance Liga. He spent this year in the Este Liga with Dunaújvárosi Acélbikák, scoring six goals and ten assists.

STS Sanok: Sanok did not elect to use either of their additions. As the team is pretty guaranteed to miss the playoffs, many players departed. More are expected to come before the February 15th deadline for other hockey leagues. The list of departures currently is Alexis Binner (D), Christian Lindberg (D), Conor MacEachern (D), Dominik Salama (G), and Mark Viitanen (F).

THL Standings

Team	GP	W	L	OTW	OTL	PTS	Goal Differential
GKS Katowice	33	23	4	6	0	81	+53
Unia Oswiecim	34	22	9	2	1	71	+50
GKS Tychy	34	18	8	6	2	68	+30
JKH GKS Jastrzebie	34	17	11	3	3	60	+27
Podhale Nowy Targ	34	9	14	5	6	43	-24
KH Torun	33	12	15	0	6	42	-10
Cracovia Krakow	34	12	18	2	2	42	-19
Zaglebie Sosnowiec	34	9	21	2	2	33	-28
STS Sanok	34	4	26	0	4	16	-79

THL Power Rankings

1. GKS Katowice (Dec Rank – 1): The champs kept on rolling this month. They only lost one of their eight games, and it was to second place Unia Oswiecim. They also defeated GKS Tychy twice. Their standout win was a 7-0 shutout over Cracovia Krakow. Murray and Kieler had strong months.
2. Unia Oswiecim (Dec Rank – 2): Oswiecim took down every team they came across, except for JKH GKS Jastrzebie, who defeated them twice. Big wins over Katowice and Tychy see them make up ground on Katowice for first place. It also resulted in them overtaking Tychy for second place in the standings.
3. GKS Tychy (Dec Rank – 3): It was a strong month for Tychy as they continued to win low-scoring games relative to the rest of the league. The team was not able to overcome Katowice or Oswiecim, and those three losses saw them fall to third in the standings.
4. JKH GKS Jastrzebie (Dec Rank – 5): Jastrzebie officially seperated themselves from the middle of the pack in January. They had an undefeated month, which saw their offense explode and goaltending turn into a prime Roberto Luongo. Everything is going right for them at the perfect time. They’re now firmly one of the top four teams in the THL.
5. Podhale Nowy Targ (Dec Rank – 4): Off-ice issues with the club took up most of the headlines in January. The team would only win one game in the month over STS Sanok. After having a chance to look like a legit playoff contender, they’re now at the bottom of the league for positioning. The offense drying up is the biggest concern right now.
6. KH Torun (Dec Rank – 6): While Torun had chances to make up ground, they couldn’t find their scoring touch. Torun was shut out in three of their nine games this month. They also picked up three wins against their other bottom-half teams. A 4-3 loss to Katowice and 2-1 loss to GKS Tychy showed the potential this team has, but they also loss 10-0 to a hot JKH GKS Jastrzebie team.
7. Cracovia Krakow (Dec Rank – 7): Krakow won their first two games of the month but then would drop the next seven games. During the losing streak, the red and white were averaging just below a goal and a half per game. They did pick up some overtime points in that time frame, but seven defeats, including to teams like Torun and Sanok, hurt their stock.
8. Zaglebie Sosnowiec (Dec Rank – 8): Another month where Sosnowiec kept most games close but couldn’t pick up enough wins in the end. A losing streak to end the month prevented Sosnowiec from making up ground on Cracovia or Torun.
9. STS Sanok (Dec Rank – 9): This was actually one of the best months of the year for Sanok. The team picked up nine points after coming in with eight points in the standings. Sanok will be losing most of their imports as transfer deadlines around Europe come to a close. Still, two more wins and taking GKS Katowice to overtime is a great way to end a rough year for a lot of players.

THL Players of the Month

January MVP – Dominik Pas (JKH GKS Jastrzebie) Jastrzebie had a huge month with plenty of players stepping up offensively and defensively. Pas takes our MVP spot thanks to his strong play at both ends. He finished with five goals and seven assists in nine games during the month.

Forward – Bartosz Fraszko (GKS Katowice) Fraszko takes our forward of the month award. He scored three goals while assisting on eight. His month was highlighted by his hattrick performance against Cracovia. His 11 points in seven games boosted his point-per-game average to 1.11.

Defenseman – Alexander Younan (Cracovia Krakow). Younan takes our Defender of the Month honors. Despite missing some games, the Swedish assistant captain scored four goals and assisted on three. His seven points in seven games made him the fourth-highest scorer on Cracovia this season.

Goalie – Jakub Lackovic (JKH GKS Jastrzebie). Lackovic and Miarka have battled for the starter job all year. Both goalies played well in January, but Lackovic really stole the show. In seven games, he posted a .953 SV% on 239 shots. This included an impressive 44-save performance versus Cracovia on January 21st.

U23 Player – Mikolaj Szczepkowski (Zaglebie Sosnowiec). Szczepkowski got a decent workload in January, appearing in five games for Sosnowiec. He finished with a .896 save percentage on 154 shots. This included three games where he stopped 30 shots or more. A solid performance for the 20-year-old goalie.

January’s Top Stories

Jan 7th. National team star and Unia Oswiecim captain Krystian Dziubiński finished 12th in Przegląd Sportowy’s 2023 Athlete of the Year voting. He finished with just under 25,000 votes. This is more than Polish soccer superstar Robert Lewandowski received. Dziubiński was the first hockey player up for the honor since 1997, when Mariusz Czerkawski was nominated.

Jan 23rd. Podhale Nowy Targ players protested their club before their match versus GKS Katowice. The delay in starting the match was due to financial reasons in money owed to players. Podhale eventually did take the ice and would lose to GKS Katowice 6-2. The club later released a statement stating they had set two dates to pay the money owed to players. Podhale made the payments that were due on January 19th. They missed the payments to be made on January 22nd due to what the club says was a banking delay. On January 27th, in an interview with hokej.net, veteran forward Damian Kapica said many of the issues the players had with the club had been sorted.

Jan 23rd. Podhale was not the only team that protested during their game on the 23rd. Sosnowiec players left the ice after a controversial call by the officials that saw a Sosnoweic goal called back while also accessing the team a minor penalty. After a short delay, they would return and fall 3-1 to GKS Tychy.

Jan 26th. Cracovia has a new assistant coach in Dušan Brincko. The Slovakian defenseman played hockey from 1995 to 2016. Brincko played up and down the various levels of Czechia, France, and Slovakia. The 47-year-old has been coaching since the 2014 season. He has coached both senior and junior hockey. His most recent stops were as an assistant coach with HC Presov in Slovakia’s top league and as the head coach of the AquaCity Pikes in the second Slovak league. Dominik Salamon will now step back from working with the senior team to focus on the youth squads of Cracovia.

Jan 29th. Podhale President Natalia Charyasz resigned from her position on Monday. This comes after missing payments to players that resulted in a protest by Podhale players before the January 23rd match. The club has named 28-year-old Mateusz Gacek as the new president of the club. He is a former youth player of Podhale Nowy Targ. Krzysztof Wajsak and Wojciech Śniegowski will assist him in runing the club as vice presidents.

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