The stormy political changes at the beginning of the 90s inevitably meant testing the strength of professional sportsmen’s groin as well – during the USSR, accustomed to a well-provided and, in some areas, even privileged lifestyle, even the meritorious found themselves thrown into the meat grinder of wild capitalism. The bitter fate did not escape the famous people (how could they not, if the silver of the 1988 USSR Championship is still fresh in their memory!) and the hockey players who came to Riga mostly from the edges of the vast Soviet Union, but did not hurry to return to their ethnic homeland – appearing in the form of the Latvian national team every spring meant more likely to be noticed and find an adequate opportunity to earn their bread and butter in one of Europe’s lower leagues.
The mission to quickly reach the big stage – the elite of the world championship, or Group A – suffered some unplanned failures, but in the end it was realized – in April 1996 in the Group B tournament in Eindhoven, beating the British, Japanese, Danes, Belarusians, Poles and the Dutch, as well as holding a draw against Switzerland, the coveted ticket was in hand. However, the joy was short-lived – the news soon reached the office of the Latvian Hockey Federation (LHF) that the upcoming Olympic qualification tournament at the end of the summer will be the last to be affected by the compromises of the old days. Namely, from now on, only citizens of the respective country will be allowed to play in the national team. But there were barely one and a half changes in the Latvian national team at that time…
How to fasten garters to “guys” and in such a way that the wise heads of the Saeima do not notice the forgery – this is the question that fueled the mind of the then LHF president Uģs Magoņis in August 1996. But there was no way out – it was necessary to act…
2023-05-28 07:00:03
#passports #distributed #national #hockey #players
