Ice hockey players are waiting at the Freedom Monument +128 See more
Now they have a bronze father and a bronze son in their family! Kārļas Čukste’s father, Ainārs Čukste, is a basketball coach, he was at the helm of the Latvian national team, together with the Latvian women’s U-20 national basketball team, he won a bronze medal in the 2005 and 2009 European Championships, while his mother, Baiba Čukste, was once the captain of the Latvian women’s ice hockey team. “Kas Jauns” magazine visited the bronze medalist’s parents at their home on the shores of Mārupīte.
Whispers in the yard of your house. (Photo: from private archive)
The main thing is to grow up a sporty boy!
Why not basketball, but hockey? Chukstes decided to encourage his son in hockey because he can start learning it from the age of three. “Children start training in basketball from the age of seven and later, but since Karlis was a very active boy, we needed to put his energy somewhere, so we decided to learn to skate. At that time, my friend Lolita Andriševska led hockey training at the Daugava ice rink with Uldi Opīti, so we thought that we would take the boy from the kindergarten to ice hockey after taking his afternoon nap,” explains Baiba, and Ainārs adds: “And later he was so attached hockey, that there was no longer even a thought about basketball. We have played, we pushed ourselves in the yard under the basket until the moment when my spine started to crack. I realized that it’s not worth trying with this guy – he already “put his shoulder” according to hockey rules. Although he really didn’t play badly as a bass player, he was even in his school’s team. A very valuable defensive player.”
Baiba, Ainārs and little Kārlis Chukstes. At that time, no one even thought that the boy would grow up to be a professional hockey player. (Photo: from private archive)
When directing Karl to hockey, the parents had no intention of raising their son to become a professional athlete. The main thing is for the boy to have some kind of sports activity. Taking Karl to practice was on mom’s shoulders, because dad was busy with his work as a basketball coach. “I only went a couple of times, because I had no other options – training and competing all the time myself. Therefore, unfortunately, it was not enough to be present in his first important games. Of course, I drove as much as I could, but my mother was always there. But Kārlis already understood that as a coach I have my own teams to be with,” says Ainārs Čukste.
This does not mean that Ainars did not pass on his coaching wisdom to his son. “Of course, we have talked a lot about attitude to work, training, game management, team psychology. We also argued quite a bit in our teenage years. Karl often interrupted that I don’t understand anything about hockey, so I “sit in my basketball and teach basketball players”. But I was already quite touchy, and although one has a puck, another a ball, the basics of sports games – moving around the field, running to open spaces, the principles of defense – are already similar to everyone. When Karl was younger, he didn’t like criticism very much. He took that painfully,” recalls Ainárs.
The young hockey player Kārlis Čukste with his idols Oskars Bārtulis and Kārlis Skraštinas. (Photo: from private archive)
I like to eat well
Even if at first Karlis’ parents only wanted their son to grow up to be a physically developed boy, over time it became apparent that he had his own goals at a fairly young age, and began to dream of joining the youth team. “He was one of the best in the team, he played first in attack, then in defense. And you could see that he was doing well, he had the determination and the character of a fighter, the first successes were achieved. But it wasn’t like we were deliberately pushing him forward, we weren’t worried about the fact that it would be a tragedy if he didn’t become a professional athlete. And then, when options appeared to study in the USA, as a hockey player receiving a scholarship for it, of course, we decided on it,” remembers dad.
Until 2020, Karlis played for the Quinnipiac University team in the NCAA Championship. (Photo: from private archive)
It is true, in his youth, Karlis was rather chubby. “Well, yes, I was overweight. But that’s because he really liked des breads and white bread with nut butter. I didn’t buy less than ten pieces of ice cream,” laughs Karlis’s mother. “And he’s not a badass even now! Because he likes to eat. He said that national team goalkeeper Artur Shilovs eats twice as much and if he ate like him, he would be round like a ball. But now Kārlis still thinks about his menu, because his girlfriend thinks a lot about healthy eating and has also attracted Kārlis to it. On the other hand, when I get home, Kärl’s delicacy is the meatballs and buckwheat I made with minced meat sauce.”
When the neighbors had to suffer
The Khuspets have a basketball hoop in the backyard, but Karlis used the yard to practice his ice hockey player’s shot through the goal. “We had a shed made of aerated concrete blocks. We kept it only so that there would be a wall behind the goal, through which Kärlis practiced his shot. When the boy grew up, the barn had to be torn down because the entire wall had crumbled from his kicks with the pucks. We had a gate there, behind it a board to protect the wall. And how he did! No, those goalkeepers are good if they are ready to catch such shots,” says Ainārs, saying that the neighbors had to suffer the most from Karl’s training in the backyard.
This is how Kárlis trained in the yard of his house, from which the neighbors’ greenhouses suffered. (Photo: from private archive)
“Neighbor Valentine had a greenhouse with enormous glass. Of course, Karl also hit them. Once, a puck had gone through the glass like a bullet – the large pane did not break, but there was a hole the size of the puck in the glass. Here, Karlis cut so hard! And Valentine kept this window pane as a keepsake. On the other hand, the other neighbor collected all the pucks that flew into her homestead and did not return them – they hid them in the basement. But her son secretly gave them to us. I guess she was aware of the consequences of Karl’s training. It was already a problem – more than once, Kärlis had to go to the neighbors to collect broken greenhouse glass, but we had to buy new ones instead,” says Baiba, the hockey player’s mother, with a hearty laugh, and Ainars adds: “But the neighbors are very nice to us, they support the boy, he keeps up with her progress. Even now, when Karl came back from the championship, he went to Valentin, who was already quite old, showed him the medal and shook his hand. We also got to meet Karli at home with the neighbor’s children.”
Getting ready for the wedding
The whispers did not really manage to celebrate the success of the Latvian hockey team together with his son, because the very next morning after returning to Latvia, Kārlis went back to the USA. “We couldn’t meet him at the Riga airport, we couldn’t attend the tribute at the Freedom Monument, so we waited for the hockey players to come out of the reception at the Presidential Palace. We met Karli for the first time at five in the afternoon, but he was already on the plane to the USA at five the next morning,” laughs Ainars.
Karlis went to America because he has to prepare for the wedding. His fiancée is a former track and field athlete who studied journalism in Arizona. Kārlis met Brūka four years ago, when she flew with the university hockey team as a correspondent, in which Latvian hockey player Filips Buncis also played at the time. At that time, there was a game with the team of Karls University, and Filips then introduced the two. When talking about her son’s chosen one, Karl’s mother’s eyes light up: “A very nice girl. Like it! Not only beautiful, but also very sweet, caring, understanding, smart. Doesn’t fit the stereotype of Americans at all. Cool girl. Think about your appearance, visit the gym regularly. It’s just a pity that there are difficulties in communicating due to language problems.”
This is how Karl was welcomed home in America by his bride. The parents think that Karlis is planning his future life in America. (Photo: from private archive)
Ainārs adds that Brūka’s parents have already been to Latvia. “Dad had come to Karl’s first two matches in the world championship in Riga. It was his first time outside of America! He has a successful business in New Jersey, engaged in the production of fire protection systems for large facilities, they also have a summer house in Arizona, and the pool overlooks the desert,” says Karl’s dad, saying that he will soon have to dress up for his son’s wedding in America.
2023-06-25 04:36:00
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