It's all of the above. Some players opt not to play if they feel they need rest/have family matters to attend to. Federations don't try to entice or even talk players into changing their minds because they don't think it matters. And clubs, naturally, never have any interest in the success of NT. But they are not as big of a factor as you make it seem. I find it very unlikely that Polish or the 3 leading Hungarian teams allowed players A and B go but not players C and D. Something like MAC have 5 players on this Hungarian team but told Bodo you aren't going? Unlikely. Just like in Lithuania's case, this seems to be mostly between the player and the federation.
Well anyway, it seems to be working for both Poland and Hungary.
Come on, Brahmanis only came back to Latvia because he was starting to slow down due to age. Let's face it, players play in Latvia if they have nowhere else to. In Poland, that's not necessarily the case. Same way Polish clubs are able to afford some decent C-grade imports like Teddy Da Costa or Gleb Klimenko. Even numerous Latvian guys, someone like Biezais was a great import.
But sure, never said your point is wrong in general. Just that Polish league is ahead of Latvian any way you slice it and some players at the top of it are not too bad.
Oh, no, that's not what I was implying.
The Polish league has more money in it. Imports are better paid. There's not much of a market for hockey outside of the Latvian KHL side. There's just not enough people here for a pro league.
That is why there are a couple of Latvians playing in Poland. But they are racking more points there than in Latvia, usually.
My point was regarding the skill level of the domestic players. Most Latvians playing in our domestic league are semi-pros or have-beens, but their natural talent and skill level is higher. It's just that hockey is not a full time job for most of them.
With more money being pumped in by teams like Mogo, Kurbads and Olimp, we are seeing a bunch of imports in Latvia as well, though. Ex-KHL, ex-VHL guys and so on.
Less money, fewer imports, higher skill level.
The last time a Latvian club faced a Polish side was in 2017/18 in the Continental Cup. Kurbads beat Tychy 5-2.