Bydgoszcz

Bydgoszcz has carried the AZS name in local handball for decades, but the club now playing under the Kazimierz Wielki University banner is a separate creation: KU AZS UKW Bydgoszcz was set up in 2007 as a fresh section within the university's sports association, apart from the earlier AZS teams the city had known. It plays as Akademicy, in green and white, and the name fits — the squad is built on students from UKW and other local universities, with an average age of around 21.

That youth has shaped the club's path more than any single trophy. Promotion out of the II Liga has come three times, in 2010, 2013 and 2023, the last of those after finishing runner-up in the 2022/2023 season, and each time the task afterward has been to hold a place in the I Liga against older, more settled sides. Head coach Artur Markowski, in charge since 2021, has overseen the most recent of those promotions.

Matches are played at the Centrum Edukacji Kultury Fizycznej i Sportu, a university hall built in 2013 that holds 1,500. In the Polish Cup the club's deepest run came early, in the 2008/2009 season, when it reached the last sixteen.

No fixture carries more weight than the one against AZS UMK Toruń, a meeting between two university clubs known locally as the Akademickie Derby. Bodega Grudziądz brings a more regional edge, the two sides drawn from the same Kuyavian-Pomeranian corner of the country, while Wybrzeże Gdańsk turns up as a regular test within the I Liga itself.