Ice hockey is the most popular sport in Latvia. The first hockey match in Latvia took place on February15, 1909, with two teams facing Union and Strēlnieka Dārzs. However, it took another 20 years to supplant the popular sport of bandy.

History

In 1929, Rīgas Strādnieku Sports un Sargs, a sports club of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party began playing the so-called "Canadian hockey" instead of bandy. The first official game took place one year later, on February 15, 1930, between Riga center and a team from Königsberg. A crew member from Rīga was Bruno Kalniņš, who was sitting in Latvian Parliament at that time and later in political exile in Sweden.

The thirties and forties until the outbreak of World War II The Latvian Winter Sports Association began supporting ice hockey in 1930, and as early as 1931 Latvia was admitted to the Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace (LIHG), the predecessor of the IIHF.

With the international recognition of the association, various hockey clubs have emerged in the larger cities, including Universitas Sports, Wanderer, Union, Armijas Sporta Klubs (ASK) from Riga and Olimpiade from Liepāja. The Social Democrats' Club continued to exist before being shut down by regime Kārlis Ulmanis. The said clubs did not play in a closed league with a fixed schedule, but fought in smaller tournaments for titles. In the early years of the Latvian ice hockey ASK Riga dominated the games of the championship and became several Latvian champions.

The beginnings of the national team The first official game of the Latvia men's national ice hockey team, which consisted of pure amateurs, took place on February 27, 1932. Lithuania were beaten 3: 0. Only two weeks later, the national team participated for the first time in the European Championship. The Latvian team won one (3: 0 against Romania) and three defeats (0: 7 against Czechoslovakia, 0: 1 against France and 2: 5 against Great Britain). In the overall standings, Latvia took eighth place out of nine participating countries.

A year later, the national team debuted at the World Cup in Prague. At the World Championships in 1935, she first met Canada and lost the game with 0:14. In 1936, Latvia participated for the first time in Winter Olympics, but all three games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen were lost: 0:11 to Canada, 2: 9 to Poland and 1: 7 against Austria. The first international match against the USA dates back to 1938, when Latvia scored a respectable 0: 1. Other international matches were mostly held on the way to or from World Championships as part of friendly matches.

In 1939, the Latvian Ice Hockey Federation contracted Canadian hockey player and sports teacher Larry Marsh to train the national team for a month. The Latvian hockey team had played a total of 26 games, including six wins, 16 defeats and four draws with a goal difference of 37:93, until 1940, the year of Soviet occupation and loss of independence.

The time of the occupation The outbreak of World War II and occupation by Soviet Union did indeed change Latvian hockey, but did not end it: the Soviets dissolved the existing teams and created new ones, such as Dinamo Riga. Two years later, when the Germans were re-established, the old teams were re-established, and other teams with typical Latvian names such as "Ledus Lāči, Daugavieši, Skrejošais Holandietis" and "Ledus Simfonija" were created. From 1944 to 1945 no ice hockey was played. In 1946 Latvia was excluded from the LIHG because of its affiliation with the Soviet Union, and only resumed in 1992 after Latvia established the Latvian Ice Hockey Federation in 1991.

The Postwar era Before the Second World War in the Soviet Union not hockey, but Bandy was played. After the war, the sporting leadership decided instead to introduce ice hockey, since this was recognized as Olympic sport. For the implementation of this plan, a Soviet delegation from Moscow drove to Riga, which returned there with a handwritten Russian translation of the Canadian ice hockey rules. It can therefore be said that one of the origins of the Russian hockey tradition lies in Latvia.

Only two years after the end of the Second World War and the incorporation of Latvia into the Soviet Union, Dinamo Riga began playing under the new name "Daugava Riga" with pre-war players in the first Soviet league. In 1948, Harijs Mellups became the league's best goalkeeper and was called to the Soviet National Team. Mellups died in the early fifties together with his clubmates near the Russian city Sverdlovsk in a plane crash.

In addition to Daugava, there were other teams such as Rīgas Vagonbūves Rūpnīca (the Latvian [RVR] club RVR), "Spartaks", "VEF" and Latvijas Bērzs, which are based on youth and/or senior level in regional championships. The only top club in Latvia, Daugava, remained in the highest league of the Soviet Union until the 1958–59 season.

Other players from before the war emigrated to Germany, where between 1946 and 1949 up to eight Latvians competed in Augsburg under the nickname "Letten-Team". This team won under the leadership of Latvian players in the Southern German championships in 1948, before the team disbanded later. Rūdolfs Veide ( dt. Rudolf Weide ) began a long and successful career as a player and coach in West Germany. In 1951 he was able to win the German Championship with the legendary Preussen Krefeld and between 1953 and 1954 he completed 18 international matches for the German national team. Later he became director of the Kenston Arena and supported the development of the Duisburg ice hockey.

Another member of the Latvian team was Ēriks Koņeckis, who several times as a player and coach German champion and later held the post of national coach.

With the descent of Daugava into the second division began for the Latvian hockey a time of mediocrity, which lasted until the end of the sixties. In 1968, Daugava was renamed again Dinamo Riga. Despite repeated attempts, the club did not manage to rise from the second Soviet League. Apart from some international friendlies against teams from Finland, Dukla Trenčín and Poldi Kladno from Czechoslovakia, Novosibirsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk, no further events from this period are worth mentioning.

The Tikhonov era The development of Latvian hockey got a boost in 1968 with the arrival of the Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov, who began his legendary coaching career there. He was known for his penchant for discipline and revolutionized training methods using a VCR for game analysis. He also attached great importance to the physical fitness of his players. Due to the low playful potential of the Dinamo players, he set with the establishment of four rows of attack a strategy that used no Soviet team until then. Since this measure has increased the players' breaks between their working hours, the team was able to make up for technical disadvantages by speeding up and improving their condition against more highly rated teams. In 1973 Dinamo Riga could even celebrate the re-emergence in the first league after 14 years.

RVR opened a hockey school in 1967 and a little later Helmuts Balderis produced a superstar. His nickname was "Electric Train" and besides Tikhonov he had a big part in the rise of Dinamo. Together with Tikhonov, he joined CSKA Moscow in 1977, participated in the 1976 Canada Cup with the Soviet national team in the and participated in five world championships and also won the silver medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. In addition, he twice won the title of the best scorer of the Soviet League and was once awarded the best striker in the World Cup. The second place of Lake Placid for the team of the USSR, however, was regarded in the home as a great failure. As one of the main culprits for the defeat in the then crucial game against the United States national team, the so-called Miracle on Ice, was also considered Balderis.

Dinamo Riga remained first class until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ethnic composition of the crew changed dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s as more and more Russians displaced the Latvians. An exception were the goalkeepers Vitālijs Samoilovs and Artūrs Irbe. Irbe gave in the 1986–87 season his debut for Dinamo in the Eliteliga. The following season Dinamo Riga was able to celebrate the biggest success in the club's history by winning Soviet Championship League. With this success Dinamo was entitled to take part in the Super Series, an annual comparison between teams from the USSR and the National Hockey League, in addition to the former Soviet CSKA Moscow champion. In addition, Irbe and Samoilovs were selected in 1988 in the Soviet Union national ice hockey team. The latter was the same year with the national team Olympic champion.

The time after 1990 Since the beginning of Mikhail Gorbachev's term of office, Latvians have increasingly begun to strive for Independence. The Latvian Supreme Soviet declared independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990. Only after the coup in Moscow in August 1991 followed the international recognition of Latvia. Irbe finally became the hero and role model of the Latvians when he participated in the defense of barricades against the Soviet Army and later refused to continue playing for the Soviet national team. Already in the 1991–92 NHL season he signed his first NHL contract with the San Jose Sharks and also won his first game.

Emigrants and returnees Due to the political turmoil, Latvian ice hockey collapsed and players dispersed in leagues around the world. Sandis Ozoliņš played in the fall of 1991 for the juniors of the Soviet national team, but began in 1992 in the International Hockey League to play. In the spring of 1992, Edmonton Oilers and Boston Bruins camps were held in Rīga, under which Sergejs Žoltoks and Grigorijs Panteļejevs were contracted. Many other players tried their luck in North America and played mostly in Minor Leagues, but did not make it into the NHL, so many returned home. Few have come up with a small number of missions in the NHL, such as Harijs Vītoliņš, Viktors Ignatjevs, Kaspars Astašenko, Raitis Ivanāns, Herberts Vasiļjevs and Panteļejevs. Only Irbe, Ozoliņš, Žoltoks and Kārlis Skrastiņš established themselves permanently in the NHL and play there even today. Other players moved to Western Europe or to the top clubs to Moscow. Harijs Vītoliņš soon returned from North America and played for many years for the EHC Chur.

The returnees from North America found a financially troubled country in which the hockey game for survival and players abruptly left their teams as soon as they offered a chance abroad. During the 1990s there was only one ice rink in Latvia, the time-honored Rigas Sporta Pils. Hockey teams emerged and disappeared and changed their names with the current main sponsor. Dinamo Riga was renamed Hockey Club Riga, then Riga stars (after the sponsor A / S Stars ) and finally in Pārdaugava . First, the team played in the Russian Interstate League , later in the Eastern European Hockey League before 1995, the bankruptcy was filed. The team was re-founded under the name Riga Juniors , as today's successor to Dinamo, the HK Riga 2000 can be viewed.

Governing body The Latvian Ice Hockey Federation organizes amateur and professional ice hockey in the country.

Domestic league