2008 Poland National Team Jaroslaw Rzeszutko Jersey

With play starting in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver one month from tomorrow, the actual process to determine which countries would compete in the competition started quite a long time ago.

While the top nine teams were automatically seeded into the 2010 Olympics nearly two years ago based on the 2008 IIHF World Rankings, the remaining three spots needed to be earned via a qualification process similar to the one used for the soccer World Cup, with various teams seeded into groups also based on the IIHF World Rankings.

The top nine countries seeded into the 2010 Olympic tournament were Belarus, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.

The first games of the Olympic Pre-Qualification actually took place on September 4th to the 7th back in 2008 when Bulgaria, Spain, Mexico and Turkey all met to decide which which one of the four would move onto the 2010 Olympic Qualifications Preliminary Round, with Spain advancing.

Once in the Preliminary Round, three groups of four would meet from November 6th to the 9th in 2008 to decide which three countries would advance to the Final Olympic Qualifying Round in February of 2009.

In the Preliminary Round, Kazakstan, Estonia, The Netherlands and Group A winner Spain met in Group B, with Kazakhstan emerging as the clear winner.

Group C included Hungary, Lithuania, Croatia and Serbia with undefeated Hungary advancing, while in Group D, Japan, also undefeated, emerged from their hard-fought group which also included Poland, Great Britain and Romania.

Next up was the Final Olympic Qualifying, which took place on February 5th to the 8th of 2009.

Group E consisted of host Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Japan with Germany winning three of three to advance to Vancouver, including two close battles, 2-1 over Austria and 2-1 over Slovenia.

In Group F host Latvia, Italy, Ukraine and Hungary met with Latvia taking an important 4-2 win over Ukraine on it's way to an undefeated record.

Meanwhile, in Group G host Norway, Denmark, France and Kazakhstan squared off with Norway toughing it out in a very balanced group by beating Kazakhstan 2-1, France 3-2 and Denmark 5-3 to earn their trip to Vancouver.

With Germany, Latvia and Norway advancing, the final groups for next month's Olympic tournament now look like this;

Group A

1. Canada
2. United States
3. Switzerland
4. Norway

Group B

1. Russia
2. Czech Republic
3. Slovakia
4. Latvia

Group C

1. Sweden
2. Finland
3. Belarus
4. Germany

Today's featured jersey is a Tackla 2008 Poland National Team Jaroslaw Rzeszutko game worn jersey, as used in the 2010 Olympic Preliminary Round Group D in Sanok, Poland.

While Poland did not advance to the Final Qualifying, they did defeat Great Britain 3-2 in a shootout and dominate Romania 9-1 before falling in the final and deciding game of the group, 3-1 to Japan.

This jersey was also previously worn during the IIHF 2008 Division I Group A World Championships in Innsbruck, Austria by a different player, where Poland finished 3rd out of 6 with two wins, one overtime win, one overtime loss and one defeat.

This jersey is all dye-sublimated, except for the embroidered Comarch sponsorship patches sewn onto each arm and the IIHF 100th Anniversary patch sewn onto the lower back of the jersey.

Rzeszutko plays for Energa Stoczniowiec in Gdansk in the Polish League.

Here's some game action between Poland and Lithuania, with Poland wearing jerseys just like ours.