Poland Get the 2028 Men’s EuroHockey Indoor Championship — First Time Hosting
Poland is getting its big indoor moment. EuroHockey has awarded the country the men’s EuroHockey Indoor Championship 2028, with Gniezno’s Hala Widowiskowo hosting the tournament from 13 to 16 January 2028.
It’s the first time Poland has hosted the event, and the biggest indoor tournament on Polish soil since the 2011 Indoor World Cup.
Ten teams will line up: hosts Poland, reigning champions Austria, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal and Czechia, plus promoted Croatia and Italy.
The timing couldn’t be better for the hosts. Poland’s men are the form side in European indoor hockey right now, with silver medals at both the 2024 championship in Leuven and the 2026 edition in Heidelberg. They’re the current vice champions of Europe, and across the men’s and women’s programmes Poland has collected nine EuroHockey Indoor medals. The women, for good measure, hold the Indoor World Champions title.
“The Polish Hockey Association is honoured and delighted to have been entrusted with the privilege of hosting the EuroHockey Indoor Championship Men in 2028,” said president Rafal Grotowski. “This is a significant milestone for our organisation and for Polish hockey as a whole; we have a strong and successful indoor hockey tradition in Poland.”
Head coach Dariusz Rachwalski knows exactly what a home crowd can do in this format. He was player of the tournament at that 2011 home World Cup, captaining Poland to silver and missing gold only in extra time.
“Hosting an event of this kind at the very highest level is something very special and indoor events create their own very special atmosphere,” Rachwalski said. “We saw it in Heidelberg in January and the level of indoor hockey in Europe at the moment is really amazing and there is going to be so much quality.”
He called Gniezno “a city central to hockey in Poland with a lot of history in a key region for the sport and one which plenty of people will be able to visit.”
Our take
This is a smart award. Poland have knocked on the door twice in a row, and giving the silver medallists a home championship is the kind of storyline indoor hockey needs. Grotowski’s “nine medals” line isn’t bluster either — Poland take indoor seriously in a way plenty of bigger outdoor nations don’t. The question is whether the home crowd lifts them over the line or adds the weight. Austria, the reigning champions, won’t be handing anything over.
The European picture: the EuroChamps 2027 format explained, France’s first EHL women’s team, and the FIH rankings.
