Which players who are nominated active in the Slovak league system are from the junior league? Nobody ... All of them played extraliga or 1.liga which are professional men's leagues miles away in quality compared to Latvian ones
U18: Latvia U18s 2025 Roster Talk
- Thread starter Namejs
- Start date
B team ? Half of the players who started the match will be in the your final roster, so don't hesitate. And for the next one, I don't understand how you can't know the player that the Latvian coaches selected for the national team, how is that possible then? And it's interesting that of your tragedians who, by the way, will also participate in the World Cup, only one scored
My tip: the following will make it to the final nomination from this team: Capars, Naglis, Budenieks, Auzins, tutins, glaznieks, vegeris, reidzans, serkins, rutkis, polis, kuzmins, utnans, obuks ... maybe someone else ... ( if dont came murnieks, berzkalns) that's 13 players and 1 goalkeeper so its "B" ? i dont think so ... its semi A/B
I did not understand a lot of what you said because of your English, sorry.
How can it be that I don't know some 17 year old hockey player? Well, I do know over fifty Latvian U18s, but I do not know everyone with a licence or everyone who knows how to skate.
The fact that a kid like that was able to score on you is telling.
Also, please read the thread before posting.
Literally all of our key and several supporting players were not present for this game. I explicitly told that before the Slovakia prep games.
For these games the roster was largely based on HS Riga, which routinely lost against Lithuanian 45 year olds and Estonian amateurs this season.
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
I would argue Latvia Leauge is just as strong as 1.liga or perhaps even better
I did not even notice that. The Latvian league is better in terms of level of play, especially if you discount the Lithuanian amateurs and the U18 team.
If you would look at the Latvian players with actual 1.liga experience, they score at a higher rate in Slovakia. This is one of the major data points I have used to compare the strength of Slovak and Latvian programmes.
As for HS Riga, it's the top line and their PP unit that will play on this U18 national team, injecting extra chemistry in the Latvian bottom 6.
The Slovakian U18 team always has some 1.liga players with mediocre rates of production. This aligns and overlaps exactly with the structure of the Latvian U18 team. This Latvian generation has more top end talent and if all of them make the roster, I believe we should beat Slovakia in WJC.
I have zero idea why some Slovak posters are so emotional about prep games between B or C teams. Slovakia has significantly more depth in terms of quantity. Their 3rd string team is much better than the Latvian one. Which is exactly why I could not care less about the 26th best Latvian U18 forward -- they have 0 potential of ever becoming pro.
So you were so hyped for this match but now that you lost 2x, its bunch of no names that you don't care about.
Maybe because you made an account on a Slovak forum just to trashtalk the Slovak team? And don't say its wasn't you.
I'm really starting to question the standards of your education system in Slovakia.So you were so hyped for this match but now that you lost 2x, its bunch of no names that you don't care about.
Maybe because you made an account on a Slovak forum just to trashtalk the Slovak team? And don't say its wasn't you.
It seems that most of you are not functionally literate and have a double-digit IQ.
I am hyping myself up for the U18 WJC. Not exhibition games.
I do not have an account on some shit tier Slovak forum. I do not give a shit about you or your country.
SoundAndFury
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- May 28, 2012
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"Lithuanian amateurs" made the PO of the Latvian league this year. For those who don't follow it (which might include Namejs) that's playing in the semi-finals. So if you exclude them and judge the league on its 3 top teams I guess it's pretty good. I'm also glad to know Estonian amateurs are still in the good books, for whatever reason.
They made the PO, correct. This is how they fared in semi-final:
And, yes, if we are judging the level of opposition of the worst team in the league, there's 6 teams left to gauge.
Also, making the play-offs means you finished 4th in a league of 6 + U18 team.
tell me who specifically had better statistics in the Slovak league than in the Latvian one... am I listening? I didn't find anyone
SoundAndFury
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Well, yes. And in the other semi Zemgale won the series 4-0 as well with the closest game having a 3-goal difference. So I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make. Out of 4 best teams in the Latvian league, 2 were Latvian and those two were head and shoulders above anyone else.
So you should either concede that it's a two-team league and your evaluation is based on those or should be happy "Lithuanian amateurs" as well as "Estonian amateurs" provide at least a few marginally competitive teams so you can claim that "the Latvian league is better in terms of the level of play" than anything at all.
I think that is the core issue. You're not listening.
Last 3 seasons:
Eduards Hugo Jansons
Latvia
0.29 ppg
Slovakia2 0.80 ppg
Aleksandrs Jerofojevs
Latvia
0.63 ppg
Slovakia2 (at the ripe age of 40)
0.90 ppg
Reinis Demiters
Latvia
0.58 ppg
Slovakia2
0.64 ppg
The Latvian league is a joke. It's slightly weaker than NAHL these days, so below Tier A junior hockey. It still is better than Slovakia2.so we conclude that the Latvian league is a joke about three teams
Also, a 4th line forward playing on the worst team of the Latvian league with 4 points in 30+ games scored on your national team.
Where ??
Attachments
If you're big on video games, I bet you only play the side quests.
I honestly don't care about Hockey Punks or Tartu Diamonds or whatever they're called. It's a backstop to keep the Latvian league afloat and it works to an extent.
The lower teams are shite. The Estonians can keep the score closer and get some points off of the leading teams. Is there a huge difference between the Lithuanians and the Estonians? No.
Again, it's not a hill I'm willing to die on. I do not care.
SoundAndFury
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It's true but when the majority of "your" league at this point are such backstops (since realistically U18 team functions the same way) and is a complete joke as a commercial project that the sports leagues have to be to ensure their survival I thought you'd be more humble when comparing it to the league where some teams pull 3k+ attendance.
Instead, you give this anecdotal evidence of a few defensemen relying on the numbers from 2010s to make your case. Like Jansons, for example, was 19 when he last played in the Latvian league in 2017.
Pastrnak in the Allsvenskan - 0,57 PPG. In the NHL - 1,1 PPG. Allsvenskan >>> NHL. Yes, I smart.
And your comparison wouldn't be so disingenuous if things in Latvia had mostly remained the same since the 2010s. However the fact is, compared to the 19/20 season, when there actually were 8 Latvian teams in a pretty competitive league, 4 of those don't even entertain the idea of icing anything remotely close to the professional team or are dead altogether.
Yes, at some select point in time Slovakia2 and the Latvian league were probably pretty damn close hockey-wise. But it sure as hell doesn't apply to 2025 or the Baltic league era altogether. But that's the price the Latvian league is paying for a complete standstill going on for decades in terms of getting itself going financially where the only chance to bump up the average attendance to at least the Spanish league standards (~360) is to invite amateur teams from neighboring countries.
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SoundAndFury
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Just for the sake of this sidequest:
But don't let this laundry list of names distract you from the 3 examples Namejs has given that actually fit his narrative.
| Latvia | Slovakia2 |
| David Maniaček | 0,4 | 0,27 |
| Ronald Dvonc | 0,69 | 0,42 |
| Filip Hudak | 0,66 | 0,44 |
| Boris Hrubo | 0,23 | 0,00 |
| Daniel Klinecky | 0,84 | 0,47 |
| Dominik Matonak | 0,63 | 0,00 |
| Mykhailo Krasnozhon | 0,33 | 0,04 |
| Vladimirs Mamonovs | 1,14 | 0,57 |
| Lauris Rancevs | 0,59 | 0,39 |
| Janis Andersons | 0,42 | 0,31 |
| Martins Lavrovs | 0,98 | 0,4 |
But don't let this laundry list of names distract you from the 3 examples Namejs has given that actually fit his narrative.
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First of all, I listed all Latvians who played in Slovakia2 over the last 3 years. Assuming ill intent instead of inquiring me as to why or how I came to my conclusion is a bitch move. You conveniently ignored that I was asked to list some examples, which I did.
If you knew anything about statistics, you would know that including players with 4 GP in a league has no value as a stand alone metric and is not a valid data point unless you aggregate/pool all games and strip the names off the data while doing a pooled mean comparison.
I had no idea there were so many Slovaks playing in Latvia. If you look at the clubs they played for, they were hired by the Lithuanian amateur teams to elevate their team and make it somewhat competitive against the Latvian teams. If you look at their ice time and usage, you would see that most of the Slovak players are 4th liners in Slovakia2 while having substantial roles in the Lithuanian teams.
Also, if you make a point about how wrong it is to include 19 year olds in my sample, at least have the decency to look at the your own sample - you did the same thing.
If you do a pooled mean comparison amongst all the players who have played in both Slovakia2 and Latvia over the last 10 years, this is their pooled mean ppg rate:
15 players total
1687 GP in Latvia
869 GP in Slovakia2
All players (aggregate)
Slovakia2
0.45 ppg
Latvia
0.53 ppg
Latvian players (this effectively discounts the Lithuanian teams)
Slovakia2
0.64 ppg
Latvia
0.57 ppg
t-statistic = 0.856
p value = 0.400
To summarize, while I was right about Latvian numbers being higher in Slovakia2, actual data analysis suggests there is no statistically significant difference between the 2 leagues and the rate of scoring whether you discount the Lithuanian imports or not.
In simple terms, the quality of both leagues is actually very similar.
This only underlines and further strengthens my point about the major overlap and similarity of the Latvian and Slovak U18 NT talent pool.
As for the argument about Lithuanian teams diluting the talent level of the Latvian league -- I am in full agreement with you. However, attendance rates have no effect on the level of play. It's merely an economic indicator. Latvian teams are not funded by ticket revenue or any kind of market forces, they are almost entirely subsidized by each respective municipality or by entrepreneurs owning the teams. Furthermore, the bulk of the players are either juniors (about a 1/3 of all players) not receiving a salary or has-beens simply playing hockey for fun, which means that the level of play is much higher than in dozens of better attended leagues.
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