Tom Anderson | Photo: “La Chaux-de-Fonds”
Forward of the Latvian hockey team Tom Anderson In the “Sporta Studijas” podcast, he talked about winning a place in the national team and his experience in the second strongest league in Switzerland.
Anderson participated in the training camp of the national team seven times, but only last year was he able to win a place in the team and go to the world championship. “It may have been a longer road, several people have come up to me and asked what are you still trying to get there for, everything is fine with you in Switzerland anyway. But I had such a dream that I finally managed to fulfill, and with very pleasant emotions.
Getting rejections wasn’t easy. If I think about it now, maybe sometimes I thought I needed it. But, as I said, I had that dream, the unfulfilled goal of playing in the World Championship, and once again it is a confirmation that you should not give up and good things will happen,” a confident Latvian.
The Latvian played for the fourth season already in the Swiss second league (SL) team “La Chaux-de-Fonds”, in which he was the captain this season. Team 2023/2024 triumphed in the SL tournament in the season of “Maybe on paper it doesn’t look like there is a good level, but there are foreigners with experience in the top leagues of Sweden and Finland. You can play there. I have a lot of trust, which helps me a lot to play, I have good partners – players from the Austrian and Norwegian national teams. We have formed a good team and the composition has not changed much in the last three years. We have the most visited team in the league, the play-off games were sold out, 5.5 thousand. The old hall, but the atmosphere is fantastic,” says Anderson.
“If someone offered to play “first fiddle” in the National League (NL) team, I would like to do it. I am 31 years old, and to fight for a place in the fourth shift, I am too old for that time, I have grown out of it. I like to enjoy hockey, score goals, be productive and win games, that’s the main thing. Or play in the top game but lose all the games? Probably not mine. Maybe it’s a dream for someone else, to play in the NL and fight for one win in ten matches. If we managed to get promoted, it would be something different, because I think I would be given a bigger role in this team,” says the striker.
“For a moment I considered getting a Swiss passport, maybe someday it will happen, now you can have dual citizenship in Latvia and it won’t change much for me. It is also not so easy to get that passport, if I remember correctly, you have to live in one canton (region) for at least ten years, not everyone can do it. “
