The Latvian national ice hockey team will launch its participation at the World Ice Hockey Championship on Saturday, starting the group stage in Stockholm against the French national team.
“Les Bleus” are not regarded as one of the stronger teams in the competition but certainly should not be under-estimated and will present a genuine challenge if Latvia is to start its campaign with a psychologically important win.
The game will start at 21.20 Rīga time, but coverage will be live from 20.30 on LTV7 and LSM.lv with large amounts of preview, prediction and analysis from experts in the Latvian Television (LTV) Hockey Studio.
You’ll find full world championship coverage and results in LSM’s dedicated section here .
The Latvian national team has 17 hockey players on its roster on Saturday morning, but the list is planned to be expanded by the game to have a full 20-player roster. The delay tactic was reportedly chosen to make it a bit more difficult for the French team to fully analyze their opponent.
It is expected that several thousand fans dressed in red, white and red will support the Latvian national team in the stands for the first game as a sizable crowd of fans has crossed the Baltic Sea to Stockholm for the first weekend of the championship.
Latvian fans in Stockholm are planning a joint march through the city to the arena on Saturday before the game.
Meanwhile back home, several special fan zones have been set up in cities across the country fo those wanting to watch games together.
The championship will feature three games each in Group A in Stockholm and in the Danish city of Herning on Saturday, where the teams from Group B will meet.
In the Latvian group, Slovenia and Canada will meet at 13:20, while the Swedish and Austrian national teams will take to the field at 17:20. In Herning, the first match of the day will feature the Norwegian and Kazakh national teams, the second match will feature the German and Hungarian national teams, while the late evening match will feature the Danish and Swiss hockey players.
In the continuation of the group stage, Latvia will also have to play against Canada (May 11), Slovenia (May 13), Sweden (May 14), Finland (May 17), Slovakia (May 18) and Austria (May 20). The four best teams in the group will advance to the quarter-finals.
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