The World Hockey Championship for the Latvian national team will start already on May 11. How can Latvia play another successful tournament?
Every championship is different, with something special. Some players are injured, others are not playing, others are preparing. If you don’t prove yourself one year, work harder the next year. What does Latvia have to prove? That Latvia is mobile, compact, as good as in the last world championship. I don’t want to say that it will be easy, but I think that the group is very favorable for Latvia, as well as the schedule of matches. We start with Poland, followed by France and Kazakhstan. You never know, but I think Poland is weaker than France. France will have a pretty good squad, relatively good. A bad team never leads to the world championship, but I think that all teams are capable. I don’t want to say – whatever, we will definitely win them, it’s not like that, every game starts with a score of 0:0, and you never know how the game will turn out. One bad clearance, one mistake, you concede one goal and the game turns completely different. Now let’s take the two recent April test matches against Switzerland – as if two hopeless losses, on the one hand, on the other hand – there was a five-minute lead for Latvia, who would have scored the first goal, who knows how the game would have changed, immediately an additional incentive, and would have differently.
Please tell us a little more about our opponents in the group stage this year.
If we return to the analysis of the teams of our subgroup of this year’s world championship – Poland, their level is known, it is not possible to noticeably supplement the composition, mostly hockey players from the local championship. France – also mostly assembled from the local championship, some players play for them in Switzerland, they are quite good hockey players. Kazakhs – this is the dark horse that will be for the Kazakhs, you can never tell. The Kazakh club “Barys” plays in the Russian championship, it is the base team of the national team, this season they completely failed. Sometimes I see the games of the Russian championship through the Internet, the Kazakhs played very poorly, it’s hard to say why, because the financing for the club was very good. I think that with that Kazakhs will want to show themselves at the world championship – on an international field. So I think they prepared very seriously. The KHL is the KHL, we know the conditions and specifics, but the Kazakhstan national team has a lot of naturalized hockey players who do not play in the KHL, but have Kazakh passports and can represent the country in the world championship. Among the naturalized, there are several Canadians, Swedes, if they come, at least five people, there is quite a strong squad, those currently playing in “Barys” are also good hockey players. I think they will not be weak.
Germany – if we look, one world championship they jump high, play for medals, the other world championship they do not achieve a result. What will be decisive here is what kind of squad they will be able to assemble, who will be the players. The level is roughly known, they will also mostly have players from the German championship, it is not known whether someone will come from the National Hockey League (NHL). It is difficult to predict who could join the team from the world’s strongest hockey league.
Slovakia – yes, it is also very important for them which NHL hockey players will join the national team. To be honest, goaltending has been a problem for the Slovaks in recent years. Slovakia has already played the first test matches, similar to how Latvia played against Austria, the Slovaks lost the opening match. There were many young hockey players that I checked. Slovakia is traditionally one of the great hockey countries, the fans love hockey very much, there are many clubs in the local championship, they will not be weak. The Slovaks are a team on the level of Latvia, you can play with them and they are beatable. Everyone is winnable.
Americans and Swedes too. The Swedes were very armed, I just read the news that several more NHL players have agreed to join the Swedish national team. On the other hand, the US World Championship will feature at least seven hockey players who scored 50 or more points in the past NHL season. It will be an impressive force.
What do you see special in this year’s Latvian national team model?
I watched the matches with Switzerland almost completely – I saw the whole of one match, half of the second match. One goal in two games. None of the games were bad, even though they lost. The first battle was probably more chaotic. In the second game, they changed the lineup, the coaches put the young guys on, they ran and fought. The moments were there, but the realization was not. Again, the Swiss have a very good goalkeeper, luck, but ours may have been a little disappointed by their skill. In most cases, we did not throw anything. So there is a little work to be done there, there is still a little time. In my view, the problem for now is the realization of scoring opportunities. It’s like we create moments, but in the final phase something is a little missing. Who can join us from the leaders who are not yet in the squad? NHL hockey player Zemgus Girgensons said that he would not. Another Miks Indrašis, another Mārtiņš Dzierkals from the Swedish championship. Then there is something. There will be someone who will score a goal.
In last year’s championship, Latvia had excellent physical preparation, the team was also psychologically strong. The head coach managed to create a team that was like a working mechanism. This year, last year’s hero, goalkeeper Artur Shilov, will not be there, but another NHL goalkeeper, Elvis Merzlikin, will be there. How do you rate it?
Maybe it will be different. As for the goalkeepers – Shilov will not be there. I believe that we have three quality goalkeepers – Merzļikin, Gudļevkis, Punnenovs (the conversation took place on April 30, but immediately after the conversation with Normunda Sējējus, the Latvian national team announced that Punnenovs will not go to the world championship – aut.). I think that all three will go to the tournament. Let’s see what the coaching staff, including goalkeeper coach Artūrs Irbe, will decide. The World Championship is relatively short, not like a club tournament lasting several months. In club competitions, you can put one goalkeeper, change after three games, give one a rest, somehow combine. The World Cup is basically seven group games and playoffs for the best teams. Seven games are needed to reach the top four in the group. Five of them have to be “suppressed”, let’s take two, a strong opponent somewhere, but you also have to play with him. Who to put in the goal? Hard to say. In my understanding, you should choose one goalkeeper who will feel that he is the main, the first goalkeeper. You see, it is very important for goalkeepers to understand psychologically that they believe in him, trust him. Maybe they will divide their forces, Merzlikin will play something, Gudlevsky will play something. Hard to say. It is unlikely that three goalkeepers will play, I think two will play, unless someone gets injured or something else unplanned happens. One must be the main one to whom the main burden will be entrusted. As I said, five games out of seven are “must-squeeze”.
Elvis Merzlikin is a masterful goalkeeper, emotional – how to control him in order to make a positive contribution to the national team?
I can’t answer how to work with the psychological factor, because I’m not in the team, I’m not in the dressing room. Can’t tell what’s going on there. I can judge from personal conversations, press publications. I can say that if the negative from the NHL season has accumulated, it should be forgotten and you should deal with it yourself. If you go out to play, you go out to play, you can’t think about anything else. You have to think about how you will catch the pucks. The press is now writing a lot about Elvi, whether someone has said something or not. I don’t want to go into it. If you’re a high-class athlete, you’re in the spotlight all the time. If you play in some beer league, no one even notices you. If you are a top athlete, you must behave accordingly, be psychologically stable that your every expression, every movement, positive or negative, good or bad game, will be evaluated and discussed. Take any top basketball player or hockey player, talk about stars, discuss, you have to be psychologically resistant to it. Don’t let yourself be thrown off balance.
The great success of the head coach of the national team, Harijs Vītoliņš, and the bronze medal he won in the world championship. Will this also give him good opportunities in his club career as a head coach?
That’s a question I can’t answer. First is the question of whether he himself wants a club coaching career in the position of head coach. Second, it is difficult for a Latvian to break into international hockey in the West. A Swede, a Finn, a Canadian or an American will always be preferred there. Even if Latvian is better. Representatives of hockey superpowers are like famous brands, and club owners, general managers mostly choose representatives of big countries. I can judge it from myself in previous years. We are not the “hot item” there, the ones in demand. The hockey players were also waiting for big offers after winning bronze, but many of them stayed waiting for a very long time and did not get what they wanted. Unfortunately, it is. If we talk about Vitolinas, he is known in Switzerland, he also played there for a long time. Maybe a good deal could be right there. If we look at Switzerland – either locals or Canadians work there. The Canadian “Hockey Mafia” has taken over.
At the end of the conversation, please share from your career as a national team player, what are the most vivid memories that you remember first?
All games are in memory. Yes, the year 2005 and the decisive match in the old Sports Palace in the Olympic qualification tournament against Belarus, where they managed to win from 1:4 in the third period. There was a fantastic atmosphere – not without the help of the Belarusian coach, who did not take breaks when we started to play back, also the German referee, who was dizzy from the fantastic atmosphere created by the home fans. Also the 2000 World Championship, when we beat Russia. Also in Eindhoven in 1996, when we got into the elite, in one of the games I got hit hard, there was confetti thrown on the ice that I didn’t notice, and I flew into the board at full speed, I managed to partially regroup, took off only my head, hit my ribs so that I lay in bed for two days and I couldn’t even go to the toilet because of the immense pain. It was. For the decisive match against Switzerland, national team doctor Jānis Kvēps sprayed everywhere he could, because there was no one to play, I played, we achieved a result. The main thing I want to say is that there was always a very good, friendly team in the national team, everyone played somewhere, but when we were together, we always stood up for each other, without saying a word. If it weren’t for that, nothing like this could happen. We felt that we were just a cell, one whole. What I want to wish for our national team – many injured, many who played last year can’t do it this year, one drops out, the next one comes in, you never know, maybe it will prove itself even better because it was in the shadow of another. The main thing is to have a good team, if it is united, we can do great things. At the same time – sport is sport, success is not guaranteed, it is important for fans to be with the national team even in moments of failure. Hockey players have to fight, the fan support in Ostrava will be quite good, I know that many are planning to go to the championship. Ostrava will speak Latvian.
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