Our #MondayMotivation is all about the hockey family and how when a bunch of young people found themselves in a new country away from friends and family and it was hockey that bound them together!
Speaking to Floris Kant from The Netherlands about their recent trip to Vilnius to play in a mixed 7 a side Tournament, he gave us the following report:
“For us, the first Latvian hockey team to ever play a tournament against other teams, this was a very special event. Having founded the team ourselves with international students from Riga it filled us with pride and excitement when we were invited to Lithuania. With players coming from The Netherlands, Germany, India, New Zealand, South Africa, but unfortunately no Latvians (yet), we travelled to Vilnius with two teams consisting out of 7 players each. Our first match we played against a youth team of Vilnius and scored the first Latvian goal in hockey history, scored by Floris Kant (The Netherlands), but losing the match, in the end, sending the team to the match for the third place. Our second team was more successful and won their match against the Veteran champions of Vilnius, sending them to the finals.
The match for third place was a very exciting one and ended up in a very exciting 4-4, were hattrick hero Caspar Gördes scored three goals for the Latvian team and the Veterans from Vilnius scored in the very last 30 seconds. A, very long, shoot out followed and in the end Hanna Kreuzer scored the winning shoot out for the Latvian team, giving them third place.
The final for the cup was again a very entertaining match v Zuvedra HC youth Team. The match ended in 4-3, with beautiful goals from star player Marc Meyer on the Latvian side.
Every team won a player of the team award, and for the Latvian side, this turned out to be Caspar Gördes for the 3rd place winners and Caecilia von Georg for the Champions.
In the end, it was a very exciting tournament, where the biggest prize was the start of a friendship between the Lithuanian Federation and the new Latvian team! We hope that this friendship will be long-lasting and this tournament will be remembered as the start of it.”
We hope that these trailblazers continue to play hockey in Latvia and start to develop hockey there, what more motivation do you need on a Monday!