When the arena opened in May last year, people in Krakow were entertained at the venue in the summer mostly with volleyball – including the Men’s World Championship – and concerts. But once winter came, the arena used for the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A from 19-25 April also had its first test for ice hockey.

The final rounds of the Polish Cup were staged at the arena with the semi-finals on 27th December and the final game one day later. Almost 30,000 fans came to the three games for this hockey weekend.

GKS Tychy had a speedy start being up 2-0 after 61 seconds of play against regular-season winner GKS Jatrzebie en route to a 6-1 semi-final victory while host Cracovia Krakow was less lucky in the second semi-final despite outshooting KH Sanok.

In front of 12,500 fans Cracovia blew a 1-0 lead. Sanok was up 2-1 after two periods but Polish national team player Grzegorz Pasiut tied it for Cracovia 54 seconds into the second period.

However, three-and-a-half minutes later Martin Vozdecky, also known as an inline hockey national team player for Slovakia, scored the game-winning goal for the final score of 3-2.

The gold medal game was won 3-1 by GKS Tychy. Czech forward Josef Vitek scored twice for Tychy.