The well-deserved Cinderella story / Day

I’m intoxicated without alcoholic beverages – the former captain of the Latvian hockey team Lauris Dārziņš, who made his debut as a coach this spring as one of the assistants of the head coach Harijas Vītoliņš, was still in a light euphoria half an hour after winning the bronze medals of the world championship. After regaining independence, the Latvian hockey team played in the highest group of the world championship for the 26th time and won medals for the first time.

“Well, that’s all. This was the main game of the day! There will be no more such emotions in the evening’s gold medal game,” foreign journalists agreed in the media room of Tampere’s Nokia Arena when they saw Latvian hockey players cheering after the 4:3 overtime victory over the USA.

PICK THE FRUITS OF LABOR

Before the championship, the word “quarterfinal” was used in the context of the Latvian national team. Will we be in the top eight for the sixth time or will we have to stay behind the barrier of the playoffs again? No one even mentioned the medals. Hockey connoisseurs pointed out the favorable situation with playing at home and gaps in the composition of competitors, but no one looked beyond the quarterfinals. Someone might still have the semi-final on their lips, but not the medals.

The former general secretary of the Latvian Hockey Federation (LHF) Viesturs Koziols, who was elected to the board of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) in September 2021, after the victory over the USA in a conversation with Saturday but stated that seven years ago, when the leadership of the federation changed, he said that the future goal was medals at the world championship. No one believed it then. When the Latvian national team lost to Canada (0 : 6) and Slovakia (1 : 2) in the first two games, the belief in playing in the quarter-finals dwindled to a minimum. If someone had talked about the medals at that time…