Latvia, the next big country?
- Thread starter Eye of Ra
- Start date
We lack human resources to be one. However, I read an article that ( possibly!!! ) Latvia is on the way to finally find its own unique style of hockey, that we can clearly see with Finland, Czech rep., Switzerland etc. After years of trying to copy other teams, that we not only cannot copy, but clearly lack human resources to clone, our only solution is to play our own game. Also, getting rid of Russian influence over our hockey (human wave hockey as I call it) has come as a blessing. Apparently 7 members of the current national team play in a Czech league, which clearly has given great results. Also a coach who understands our abilities and mentality! That's where the gold is!
Next top 8? No way. We are definitely behind Switzerland, Germany, and Slovakia who has finally started to produce top prospects. Other top 6 I will not even mention.
But we are definitely improving more and more over the years. While not producing legit NHL players yet on an even semi-constant basis, we have more and more players in top European leagues. Depth-wise Latvia is going up, players who would have been locks 10-year ago now have to fight to get into the team, and looking at various prospects, the situation should only improve in the future. Maybe being a legit contender in best-on-best tournaments is still a dream for us, I do think that on European level Latvia is going to improve still and this year's success is not going to be a one off. I think some more successful tournaments will happen in the near future.
I do think though that given the amount of people we have, we can only hope to have a team competitive in best-on-best tournaments on a very good day at max.
But we are definitely improving more and more over the years. While not producing legit NHL players yet on an even semi-constant basis, we have more and more players in top European leagues. Depth-wise Latvia is going up, players who would have been locks 10-year ago now have to fight to get into the team, and looking at various prospects, the situation should only improve in the future. Maybe being a legit contender in best-on-best tournaments is still a dream for us, I do think that on European level Latvia is going to improve still and this year's success is not going to be a one off. I think some more successful tournaments will happen in the near future.
I do think though that given the amount of people we have, we can only hope to have a team competitive in best-on-best tournaments on a very good day at max.
Would be cool if we could transform top8 into something like top10 in future.
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
What I mean is progress enough in order to transform top8 into top10.
10 nations that can fight for the top spots.
Otherwise, as people mentioned we are lacking human recourses.
I'm super happy for Latvia and their fans that they earned a bronze medal, but in all fairness they've had stronger teams in the last decade. Daugavins, Indrasis, Kenins are in decline. Darzins, Karsums and Redlihs retired or got too old for the national team.
Meanwhile, they've only had five guys drafted in the last six years, all of them in the later rounds. The way I see it, this medal was "the last chance" for much of this aging core. Luckily Abols and Balcers are still in good age, and if they can have Blueger and Girgensons they might be able to pull off another upset in the quarterfinals.
But really they need to develop more young players. Silovs is on good track and Locmelis has NHL upside, but it's not enough. But long term, one can hope this bronze medal inspires the next generation. It's a small nation with limited rescoures, but the hockey culture is certainly there.
Meanwhile, they've only had five guys drafted in the last six years, all of them in the later rounds. The way I see it, this medal was "the last chance" for much of this aging core. Luckily Abols and Balcers are still in good age, and if they can have Blueger and Girgensons they might be able to pull off another upset in the quarterfinals.
But really they need to develop more young players. Silovs is on good track and Locmelis has NHL upside, but it's not enough. But long term, one can hope this bronze medal inspires the next generation. It's a small nation with limited rescoures, but the hockey culture is certainly there.
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
They beat powerhouse Sweden in u18 wjc. They are fine with prospects.
Congrats Latvija from Finland for the bronze well earned! Happy for all you Latvian hockey fans, one of the two nations in Europe where Hockey is #1 sport! Finland took Olympic Silver in Calgary 1988, it was another seven years until we got our first gold in 1995 WC, and finally the Olympic gold in 2022 games. For a nation with population under 2 million(!) Latvia really is doing a spectacular job producing top level hockey players.
That was in 2022. In the same tournament they were beaten by USA with 3-13. This year, Sweden won 6-1.
They're not fine with prospects. Not when you're asking if they're gonna be the "next big hockey country".
Nothing about their prospects indicates they will climb from being 9-11. And that's fine. Latvia is a nation of 1.8 million people. If they can remain a 9-11 country, be a threat to make the quarter finals and once every 10-15 make the semis, that's good for them.
There are more young, promising players than the ones you mentioned. Time will tell.
As you can see, you don't need to play in NHL to be a good professional player.
Imagine Latvian NT having the fighting spirit/skill it already has + 3 NHL mid tier players.... it would already be a threat even without the recent achievement.
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ozo
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Bronze? Super easy, barely an inconvenience. Get gud rest of the world!
Latvia lacks one signifficant component to become a major hockey power - strong domestic league. Despite having a reputation of "best fans in the world", local league games are barely attended by few hundred spectators despite the tickets being almost free. Thats because of a long history of having one strong club in the USSR league which was kinda the same as the National team right now. Smaller cities not only dont have the resouces, they have no fan interest in their teams and are mostly reliant on support of local municipalities or middle lever businessmen, who can barely afford paying the electricity costs of the halls.
Even small population is not that a big of an issue. Finland has a few times bigger population, yet much, much larger player base. Because of the local interest in hockey, which persists all year and not just in may.
This puts Latvia far behind of emerging hockey powers like Switzerland and Germany. The only comparable top nation with simillar problem is Slovakia, but even their championship is miles and miles ahead. There were 0 players from the Latvian league in this tournamet. And our top scorer - Ri. Bukarts - plays in Austria. Which is really weird when you compare strenghts and achievements of Austria and Latvia.
Finland shows that even a small nation can build a solid hockey championship. That is what Latvia needs to strife for, otherwise the pure enthuasiasm and wealth of several parents who can allow to send their kids abroad, will not be enough to challenge not only Germany and Switzerland, but even Austria, Norway or Great Britain in the future.
Even small population is not that a big of an issue. Finland has a few times bigger population, yet much, much larger player base. Because of the local interest in hockey, which persists all year and not just in may.
This puts Latvia far behind of emerging hockey powers like Switzerland and Germany. The only comparable top nation with simillar problem is Slovakia, but even their championship is miles and miles ahead. There were 0 players from the Latvian league in this tournamet. And our top scorer - Ri. Bukarts - plays in Austria. Which is really weird when you compare strenghts and achievements of Austria and Latvia.
Finland shows that even a small nation can build a solid hockey championship. That is what Latvia needs to strife for, otherwise the pure enthuasiasm and wealth of several parents who can allow to send their kids abroad, will not be enough to challenge not only Germany and Switzerland, but even Austria, Norway or Great Britain in the future.
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
imagine this team, everyone in their prime....i think gold canidate in wc and perhaps able to reach semifinals in best on best.There are more young, promising players than the ones you mentioned. Time will tell.
As you can see, you don't need to play in NHL to be a good professional player.
Imagine Latvian NT having the fighting spirit/skill it already has + 3 NHL mid tier players.... it would already be a threat even without the recent achievement.
Irbe
Elvis
Ozolins - Skrastins
Pujacs - Kulda
Rēdlihs - Bartulis
Tribuncovs
Balcers - Zoltoks - Daugavins
Indrasis - Blueger - Darzins
Ņiživijs - Abols - Sprukts
Kenins - Girgensons - Karsums
impressive for a country who only has 2 million people...
please correct with some players if i was wrong..
tictactoe
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Perfect Human
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This excites me and should everyone else too. Not that it will happen because of equipment and ice access and other, many reasons, but it would be cool if there were a larger pool of national teams that were wholly competitive, similar to football/soccer.
Obviously all it takes is a ball to play football/soccer so hockey will never actually get the same coverage, but would still be cool if in like 50 years there were more than 16 competitive hockey countries year in and year out.
Obviously all it takes is a ball to play football/soccer so hockey will never actually get the same coverage, but would still be cool if in like 50 years there were more than 16 competitive hockey countries year in and year out.
I think every neutral would wish this to happen for Latvia, they have fantastic fans and they are the epitome of the classic underdog story, claiming a medal with a hockey team recruited out of a population of a mere 1.8 million people.
However, I don’t think that’s realistic. I think in this tournament there was a perfect storm of everything coming together for them, the domestic environment played a massive role and they got a huge psychological lift from various of their group games, including the last-ditch win over Switzerland that got them into the QF. But it’s a very long way from one single result to becoming a permanent feature in the top eight. Drawing conclusions as to permanence from one single tournament result is not the smart way to objectively look at a situation.
However, I don’t think that’s realistic. I think in this tournament there was a perfect storm of everything coming together for them, the domestic environment played a massive role and they got a huge psychological lift from various of their group games, including the last-ditch win over Switzerland that got them into the QF. But it’s a very long way from one single result to becoming a permanent feature in the top eight. Drawing conclusions as to permanence from one single tournament result is not the smart way to objectively look at a situation.
Gold Standard
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GX
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We're better than ever with prospects. When Daugavins played his first U18 WJC, Latvia finished 14th in the world for several consecutive years. Now the U18 team reached QF for three editions in a row.
Daugavins was drafted in 2006. Following that, no Latvian was drafted until 2010. Now we got 5 draftees in 4 years, with more very likely to get picked in 2023 and 2024. High-end talent? Probably not. But they will be the future core of the team. Like the 9 draftees of 2012-2016, which are at prime age today and 5 of which were on the ice yesterday.
Latvia is not claiming to be the 'next big country', just a lock for Top 10. For now.
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I don't really agree with your statements about our core. The core of the last 10-15 years is already almost gone, in this tournament where we got our medal only Daugavins and to a lesser extent Indrasis who can be said are from that core were amongst the top players in the team. All our other leaders were in their prime, between 25 and 30 years old. We already have a new core now, it wasn't "the last chance" for an aging one.
Everything is relative, of course. OP is asking if Latvia is becoming a permanent top 8 country. I don't see it. Doesn't matter if Latvia is better than ever with prospects, they'll remain behind Czechia, Slovakia, Germany and Switzerland for any forseeable future (general consensus, not IIHF ranking which they will obviously climb now with their bronze).
They'll remain a 9-11 country and again, that's fine. Their current prospects shouldn't be expected to be better than the current core. It's good enough if they can replace them, and hopefully soon one or two really good prospects (1st round calibre) comes along.
I'm not even going to respond to this.
If everyone keeps sending their C teams to the World Champs and we get to have our A- team, we will continue being competitive.
If we compare all the teams best-on-best, we're exactly where we were 5 years ago. The only difference is that Norway has become weaker and Denmark is not able to replace its former NHL players, so we have overtaken them.
That still makes us only 10th in the world slightly behind Slovakia, which is pretty accurate. They have more NHL players and have the edge over us.
We are nowhere close to overtaking Germany or Switzerland and that is not going to happen during the next 10-15 years.
We're sitting in that 9-11 range and that's pretty much our ceiling best-on-best right now.
If everyone keeps sending their C teams to the World Champs and we get to have our A- team, we will continue being competitive.
If we compare all the teams best-on-best, we're exactly where we were 5 years ago. The only difference is that Norway has become weaker and Denmark is not able to replace its former NHL players, so we have overtaken them.
That still makes us only 10th in the world slightly behind Slovakia, which is pretty accurate. They have more NHL players and have the edge over us.
We are nowhere close to overtaking Germany or Switzerland and that is not going to happen during the next 10-15 years.
We're sitting in that 9-11 range and that's pretty much our ceiling best-on-best right now.
