The Latvian U18 national team will start the world championship against the host Finland – Hockey – Sportacentrs.com

• USA, Slovakia, Finland, Latvia and Norway will share four tickets to the quarter-finals in Espoo in subgroup A, while Sweden, Canada, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Kazakhstan will fight for the quarter-finals in Vantaa in subgroup B.

• Unlike the previous format, when the battle for survival took place in a series of up to two wins, this time only one game is planned between the weakest teams in the groups.

• The Latvian U18 national team has been playing in the highest division since 2019, and a year ago in Switzerland, they won eighth place. The composition of the opponents in the group was almost identical – 1:7 against the USA, 2:5 against Finland, 1:5 against Switzerland and 1:0 over Norway, which then eliminated Germany in a rematch with 6:1, 3:2. In the quarterfinals, Latvia lost to Sweden 1:6.

• Finland also left in the quarter-finals a year ago – after winning the second place in the group, it lost to Slovakia 2:3. The last time the Finns played in the final was in 2018, when they became champions for the fourth time in history.

• The U18 national teams of Latvia and Finland will meet for the eighth time in the elite, until now the Finns have always won – once by two, three times by three, twice by five and once by seven goals.

• In the final composition of 23 players of Latvia there are thirteen legionnaires (seven from Sweden, three from Switzerland, one each from Denmark, Canada, USA), nine representatives of HS “Rīga” and Latvian champion at the age of 15 Olivers Mūrnieks, who collected 15 in 18 games in the regular season (5+10) years.

• Latvia has 17 players who were born in 2006, four players who were born in 2007, and also two players who were born in 2008 – in addition to Mūrnieks, Martins Klaucāns, who played his first season in North America.

• Before the championship, the Latvian U18 team played five test matches – at home 1:2 in the bullpen, 6:2 against Poland, away 3:2 in the bullpen, 1:2 against the Czech Republic, away 0:4 against Sweden. Maksims Pumpiņš scored from the final team with 1+2 in test matches.

Latvian U18 national team

Head coach – Oleg Sorokin,
coach – Herberts Vasilijevs,
coach – Maksims Shirokovs,
goalkeeper coach – Reinis Repšs,
video trainer – Artūrs Barovskis,
physical sag. coach – Raivis Miezāns.
doctor – Toms Eglītis,
physiotherapist – Rudolfs Vertulaitis,
equipment manager – Aldis Karulis,
general manager – Renars Freibergs.

Latvian calendar

Previous World U18 Championships

The most titled countries