Zemgale/LLU from Jelgava is celebrating its first ever Latvian title after completing a sweep of Olimp/Venta 2002 from Riga in the play-off final of the country’s top league, OHL. The decisive games was played in front of a capacity crowd at the ice arena in Pinki, on the outskirts of Riga, where Zemgale’s 3-1 victory on Monday secured that debut crown.

It represented revenge for the Jelgava-based team, which suffered a defeat against Olimp in last year’s final. Artis Abols’ men learned from that experience. The semi-final was hard work: Liepaja was beaten in six games, four of which went to overtime. After that, though, the defending champion was dispatched without dropping a single verdict. Earlier, regular season leader Mogo had surprisingly lost to fourth-placed Olimp in its semi-final.

Zemgale began the final series with a 5-0 victory on home ice and followed that with a 3-2 shootout success. On the road, there was another 3-2 verdict, this time in regulation in Riga. Then came the decider in Pinki, where two goals from Aleksandrs Novikovs and a third from defenceman Ilja Grekovs sealed a 3-1 win and secured the trophy.

The victory also makes a bit of Latvian hockey history. Ninety years after the first national championship, the title has gone to a team from outside of Riga or Liepaja for the first time.

Old heads lead rising stars

Zemgale secured its maiden title in a series that turned into a triumph of youth over experience: goalscorers Novikovs and Grekovs are aged just 23, and the average age on the roster was 22. Olimp, meanwhile, had the oldest line-up in the competition, featuring the likes of Mikelis Redlihs, Aleksejs Sirokovs and Georgijs Pujacs, all of whom have more than 50 IIHF World Championship appearances for Latvia. By contrast, Zemgale’s international experience was limited to a handful of World Championship games for Roberts Jekimovs and Edgars Kulda, most recently in 2016, plus two appearances from Patriks Ozols at the recent Beijing Olympics.

Kulda was also named MVP. He had four goals and eight assists and previously won the same award at the 2014 Memorial Cup.

However, there is crucial know-how where it matters. Head coach Artis Abols is a well-known figure in Latvian hockey. As a player, he’s a five-time national champion, as a coach he spent 12 seasons in the KHL with Dinamo Riga and Lada Togliatti and has been part of the national team program since 2017. Despite that long career, this week’s win was pretty special for him.

“In recent years, Jelgava has had a team among the top four and was the only one that had not won the title,” Abols told TV Net. “As a coach, I hadn’t won it either, although it’s only my second year in the Latvian championship. I’m glad we managed to do it.”

And captain Arturs Ozolins, the oldest player on the team at 33, can also call on a globe-trotting career that has seen him suit up for the Guelph Storm as a youngster before going on to play in Sweden, Kazakhstan, Russia and Austria. This season marked his return home for the first time since 2006/07 – and he’s planning to stay and continue helping the next generation of Latvian players develop their skills.

“It’s wrong to say that the Latvian championship is at a low level,” he told TV Net after the final. “I decided to come home and it was good to play in our league.

“I’m happy to invest my knowledge into the development of Latvian hockey. Sometimes, maybe, younger players can’t handle their emotions during the game. I help to calm them down a bit.”

The role of the Latvian championship in developing players for the national program is only going to increase in the immediate future, following Dinamo Riga’s withdrawal from the KHL due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ozolins added that he’s staying at home to continue his role as a mentor.

“We have a good team and everyone progressed,” he said in an interview with Hokeja Zinas. “We trained long and hard every day. Maybe it didn’t make such an impression on the experienced players, but the young guys made great progress.

“It’s hard to say about next season, but I’m definitely not going away anywhere.”

The intense training mentioned by Ozolins was also a factor for Abols. “[Olimp] certainly don’t practice as much as we do,” the head coach said. “At the same time, we can see that the experience and skills of their players, who have been a high level, can still bear fruit.

“For many of our players it was a first taste of the play-offs, it was a situation where they’ve never been in a decisive game against an experienced team.

“Maybe they were sometimes slower, maybe they lacked a bit of energy in the third period, but they went out and showed that they weren’t afraid and, they didn’t just start shooting the puck anywhere. It’s a great experience for these players.”

Anniversary season

The 2021/22 campaign was the 90th anniversary of Latvia’s hockey championship. Back in 1932, the Baltic state played its first ever tournament, won by Unions Riga. At that time, hockey was concentrated in Riga and Liepaja, with Unions topping the six-team Riga Division before winning the national title in a playoff against Olimpija Liepaja. That two-city format continued for a second year, with Unions again coming out on top in the playoff against Olimpija, then the competition reverted to a single division of teams in Riga.

After Dinamo Riga won in 1941/42, Latvia ceased to play its own championship and its teams were absorbed into the Soviet competition that began in 1946. It wasn’t until 1991 that a newly-independent Latvia was able to stage its own tournament again. Now the league featured clubs from outside of Riga – Ozolnieki, Cesis, Ogre, Valmiera, Engure, Plavinas and Broceni all entered teams in 1991/92 – but the capital maintained its stranglehold on honours until 2000 when Metalurgs Liepaja became the first provincial team to win the title. 

However, Zemgale’s success – in the 30th anniversary of the revival of the Latvian championship – is the first time that a team from outside of Riga or Liepaja has won the title. And, with the concluding game of the season attracting a record crowd for a Latvian championship fixture, there is reason to hope that the sport will continue to gain in popularity throughout the country.

“It’s good, because we play for the fans,” Abols added. “It’s one thing when you have a situation like last year and nobody is able to come to the games because of Covid, but if things are normal and nobody comes to the games, you have something to worry about.

“Now we are seeing a full arena in Jelgava, and also in Pinki, where there probably hasn’t been a full house since I was playing myself.

“The performance levels shown by both teams in this series did not go unnoticed. It was an interesting contest, evidenced by the fact that the crowds are coming.”