What’s new in hockey? Matulis: Rihards Bukarts and statistics break the wings of a dream – Klik

The co-author of this article is Rihards Bukarts, who formulated Latvia’s place and opportunities in the world very well at the World Championships in Tampere. Place – tenth, it’s ours! Opportunities – four quarterfinals in 26 years.

The author, I myself, already in 2019 in Slovakia noticed a trend that a new division has taken place in the world championships: there is a relative big quartet – Canada, Russia, Finland and Sweden, which are fighting for medals in almost every championship. Then there is the big nine, where the quartet is joined by the Czech Republic, the USA, Switzerland, Slovakia and Germany – these are the teams that are usually in the quarterfinals. And then comes the third group of countries, which sometimes ranks among the eight strongest in the world. This is relatively rare, but Norway, France, Latvia, Denmark and Belarus are sometimes there.

In the fourth group, the countries that swing from the end of the elite group to drop out and play in the 1st division are Austria, Italy, Kazakhstan, Slovenia, Hungary and Great Britain.

Looking at the big table at the end of this article, it’s all in the palm of your hand and based on numbers alone, Latvia can’t fall out of the elite group and changes are needed in the World Cup in general. From the position of Latvia.