Peteri Nummelins: A New Chapter with the Latvian National Hockey Team

Last year, Nummelins received a phone call from the head coach of the national team, Harijs Vītoliņš, and almost instantly agreed to the invitation to work for the Latvian national team. Nummelins considers working in the national team a great opportunity, so he accepted the offer without thinking long and joined the team that won medals for the first time in history last year at the world championship.

Coach Peteri Nummelins on joining the Latvian national team

“It’s a great opportunity to work with the national team, get to know another country and do something like we did last year [pasaules čempionātā] in Finland. It was nice to work here and our system was efficient,” Nummelin said. “I made a couple of calls and made my decision [strādāt izlasē] accepted in 15 minutes. I had to get moral approval from a couple of people in the Finnish Hockey Federation, and of course I told my dad about the decision.”

During the club season, the 51-year-old Nummelins is the head coach’s assistant in the Swiss top league team “Ajoie”.

A specialist has a similar role in the Latvian national team – to work with defenders. He does not deny that the success of the team also requires luck, however, the impressive result for the Latvian national team was ensured by the invested work. Reaching medals with a team from another country did not diminish Nummelin’s joy at the achieved result.

Peteri Nummelins for the Latvian hockey team at the 2023 World Championship

“It doesn’t matter with which country you win medals. After so many hard weeks, it was great to achieve such a result,” emphasized Nummelins.

Last year in Finland, many media recognized that Latvia saved the world championship, because the tournament in Tampere was quite quiet until the moment when Latvian fans arrived and became the tone-setters.

“I had the feeling that the Finns were happy about the arrival of the Latvian national team and fans,” Nummelins said.

Along with other coaches of the Latvian national team, Nummelins ensures that the national team is ready to perform at the highest level in the world championship, which will start on May 10 in the Czech Republic.

Candidates for the Latvian national team have already played several test matches, but the national team will still get the final details for participation in the world championship. Players who have finished their club season abroad are gradually included in the national team, and less than a month before the world championship, the national team has an active training phase, as the next test matches will be held only on April 26 and 27 away against Switzerland.

Latvian ice hockey players will start the world championship on May 11 in the Czech city of Ostrava with a game against Poland. In the continuation of the group stage, they will have to play against France (May 12), Kazakhstan (May 14), Germany (May 15), Sweden (May 18), Slovakia (May 19) and the USA national team (May 21). The World Championship will end on May 26 with the medal matches.

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