History of curling in Poland

We can mark a beginning of curling in Poland in year 2002, when Polish Curling Society (Polskie Stowarzyszenie Curlingu) was officially registered in court. It was also the first curling club in the country. In the same year PSC competed in Savona Cup in Prague, where it placed as 19. The players were: Marcin Pyrzanowski, Krzysztof Zawisza, Paweł Kornek, Agata Król, Robert Król, Paweł Burlewicz and Paweł Terlikowski. Later in 2002 two more curling clubs emerged: Karkonosze Curling Club in Piechowice and City Cutling Club in Warsaw.

Also in 2002 first people from Poland – Paweł Burlewicz and Arkadiusz Detyniecki – took part in World Curling Federation's camp. After coming back, in the beginning of 2003, they formed second club in Warsaw: Media Curling Club. In the same year more clubs were registered: MUKS Euro6 and Warsaw Curling Club (both in the capital), Kraków Curling Club, Silesian Curling Club (in Katowice). More came in the next year: CK Nikifor in Krynica, Zielona Góra Curling Club, Sopot Curling Club and one club in Łódź.

In September 2004 first curling rocks were brought to Poland.

Federations, Associations...

In the meantime, PSC was superseded by Polish Curling Federation (Polska Federacja Curlingu). In the year 2003 it was admitted to World Curling Federation. Marek Jóźwik – a sports journalist and former hurdler – was elected as the president of the new association. The decision for that was motivated with possibility to quickly popularize curling in media and obtain some money for it (e.g. by Jóźwik's contacts in Polish Olympic Comitee). As time went by, it became more and more obvious how terrible mistake this was.

On 28 June 2005 PCF was transformed into Polish Curling Association (Polski Związek Curlingu). The president remained the same and soon it turned out that the strategy to quickly develop curling in Poland went awry. The board of PCA was not really interesting in pursuing it. More and more doubts, questions and demurs were published on the internet and the situation even made it to "paper" media.

All attempts to call off the board and form a new one were unsuccesful because of formal tricks used by Jóźwik and friends (such as accepting karate (!) clubs to the Association to get majority of votes during general assembly). In 2010 Association did not pay the member fee for European Curling Federation before the deadline (even though it was extended by one month because of their appeal). As a result, PCA was suspended as member of ECF. The response from PCA was tu sue ECF for... extending the deadline for them (which according to them was against the regulations). The confilct was resolved but Polish national teams had to play in lowest group C in the World Championships in the following season.

This resulted in administrative supervision from Polish Ministry of Sports in PCA. The final verdict was negative. The association was also ordered to return almost 93,000 PLN to MoS. The board, however, remained. Next control was conducted in 2012 and another 67,000 PLN was ordered to be given back. The money, however, were probably never returned and in 2016 the debt was remitted.

The next attempt to fix the situation in Polish curling was taken in 2012, when Polish Curling Clubs Federation was formed to oppose PCA. In 2015 the officially announced the protest against PCA's wrongdoings. In the meantime, in 2014 the managed to organize a Polish national league: something that PCA failed to do in 9 years!

It is also worth noting that Poland still does not have any dedicated ice rink and most of the clubs have to train on skating or hockey rinks. However fortunately this situation might change soon.