Latvia, the next big country?
- Thread starter Eye of Ra
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Requires having some relevant players. Balcers is a fringe NHL player but otherwise, the country has essentially no one. Merzlikins, sure... But he was NHL's worst goalie last season.
kudla
Registered User
I will try to work on that tonight
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
Lithuania is about the same size as Latvia and aren't they in the top 10 at basketball which is a much bigger sport than hockey?
GKJ
Global Moderator
- Feb 27, 2002
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They need to figure out how to produce high-end talent. It’s clear that they are able to compete with European league-level players, but the high-end talent is where they’re lacking behind the ‘smaller hockey nations.’ They need players who can be first and second round picks and have a few of them almost every year if they want to try and get further.
How is the health of their domestic league? I thought I heard the other day they had a lot of trouble, that needs to be fixed, unless they are able to put a program together where they can play in another country. For instance, I recall hearing they Dinamo Riga was considering trying to get into the Finnish league (on account of the domestic league not being strong enough).
How is the health of their domestic league? I thought I heard the other day they had a lot of trouble, that needs to be fixed, unless they are able to put a program together where they can play in another country. For instance, I recall hearing they Dinamo Riga was considering trying to get into the Finnish league (on account of the domestic league not being strong enough).
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
30 years ago both Latvia and Lithuania had considerably higher populations than today. They have lost a lot of people to emigration. Probably everybody in both countries has a family-member who lives abroad.
Next big country? Probably not, with their size. Having good hockey players is basically a mix of pure dumb genetic luck of natural athletic ability plus having the kids focus the majority of their athletic endeveours on the game of hockey. Which is why big population countries with cold environments (like Russia, USA, Canada) will always be at top of the hockey world.
It's cool that they medal'd this year, but keep things in perspective.
It's cool that they medal'd this year, but keep things in perspective.
Small countries that are great in at least some sports: Jamaica, Uruguay, Iceland, Lithuania, Slovenia and Croatia.
At least rally, tennis and athletics.
Yozhik v tumane
Registered User
- Jan 2, 2019
- 2,090
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I mean… The difference in population is actually quite significant between Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, comparatively speaking.
Difference between Sweden (~10m) and Austria (~9m) is approximately 1 million, thus Sweden’s about 10% larger.
But for smaller countries such as the Baltics, one million is quite a lot. Lithuania’s got 2.8m to Latvia’s 1.8m inhabitants: Latvia’s population is only about 64% the size of Lithuania. And Estonia (1.3m) is less than half the size of Lithuania, or 72% of Latvia’s population.
Not their fault but they don't have a big enough population to ever compete best on best in a team sport, even a minor one like hockey.
KingAlfie11
Registered User
- Nov 3, 2021
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Keep your eyes on Switzerland and Germany, Switzerland is already a major hockey nation but Germany could be the next one.
The Crypto Guy
Registered User
- Jun 26, 2017
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lol, please stop. The tournament is a joke as it normally is. You had complete scrubs playing on most of the teams.
You're clearly Russian. This is something that they're feeding you through Russian state-media to make you feel better about your lives.
The truth is that 35 years ago Latvia was occupied and its population consisted of a large share of illegal colonists, i.e. Russians, many of whom literally were military personnel or their relatives.
That is the population benchmark you're referring to. There were 2.6 million people living on the occupied territory of Latvia.
The Russian army was deported and left during the 90s (250k people) and many of their descendents have left the country for menial jobs in the UK, Germany and elsewhere in the 00s and 10s.
So you are right that the Latvian population has decreased, but it's overwhelmingly ethnic Russians who have left the country. The share of ethnic Latvians has increased dramatically.
So you will be hard pressed to find an actual Latvian complaining about this.
Good riddance is what most people think.
We're actually better at basketball than the Lithuanians right now.
It's going to be a fun World Cup come August.
Artorius Horus T
sincerety
Aaaha-haa.. no. (no offence)
Special circumstance worlds, top teams had meh rosters, some top teams under performed,
we saw some super strange strategies, playing styles in this tournament.
It was like almost every team was playing a version of team Finland game, not the style we played at these games,
but previous years. - i have no idea what was Jalonen and his assistants smoking, but this wasn't
our style of hockey..
Latvia always does this, has a great tournament once in a while, then almost gets relegated in the next.
Special circumstance worlds, top teams had meh rosters, some top teams under performed,
we saw some super strange strategies, playing styles in this tournament.
It was like almost every team was playing a version of team Finland game, not the style we played at these games,
but previous years. - i have no idea what was Jalonen and his assistants smoking, but this wasn't
our style of hockey..
Latvia always does this, has a great tournament once in a while, then almost gets relegated in the next.
That would be a great match-up, I hope we meet in the play-offs.
First we need to get out of the group of death, though. France and Canada consist almost entirely of NBA players. We only have 5 with NBA experience.
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
yeah finland is good at basketball, iceland too. but sweden, denmark and norway sucks at basketball. on the other hand, finland sucks at handball while sweden, denmark and norway is good at it.
well the germans dont have Nowitzki anymore...
