Miracle 2.0: Latvia Shocks The World, Takes Down Canada At The World Juniors For The First Time Ever
Every single year, Canada comes into the World Juniors with the most loaded roster. It's a group of 25 guys, and at least half of them have been drafted in the 1st round. If they weren't taken in the 1st round, you can bet your sweet ass they were an early 2nd round pick. Every once in a while some kid comes around who beats all the odds and magically makes the Canadian World Juniors team as a 4th round NHL draft pick. As a result, they are always heavy favorites to win the tournament every year. Especially in years that are hosting the tournament.
The Latvian national junior team has two kids on the roster who was drafted to an NHL organization. Forward Eriks Mateiko was drafted in the 3rd round of last summer's draft by Washington, and defenseman Darels Uljanskis was drafted by the Anaheim Ducks in the 7th.
Now I don't want it to seem like Latvia is some country who just found out what hockey was a few years ago. The national team has had a good amount of relative success over the past 10 years or so. They made it to the quarterfinals at the 2014 Olympics. They won the bronze medal at the 2023 World Championships. So they're getting there for sure. But this is a national hockey program whose best ever finish was a bronze medal at the World Championships.
Then we're talking about a Canadian national hockey program which has won 9 Olympic gold medals, 28 World Championship gold medals, and 20 World Junior gold medals. Make no mistake about this, Canada is the current Soviet Red Army. And here come a rag tag group of Latvian kids ready to shock the world.
It would have been considered a moral victory for Latvia to head into the 1st intermission of last night's game tied 0-0 with Canada. Just on paper, you'd expect Canada to head into the locker room after the first 20 minutes of the game with a cozy little 3-goal lead. But 20 minutes down, no score. Canada got on the board first in the 2nd period to make it a 1-goal game, but they were never able to build on that lead. Latvia keeps sticking around, sticking around, and before you know it….BANG. 1-1 game with just over 6 minutes to play thanks to Eriks Mateiko (2024 WAS 3rd Rd) getting the boys on the board.
That ended up being a wakeup call for Canada because they ended up scoring again a minute later to take the lead back. But once again, they didn't put Latvia away when they had the chance. 2-1 Canada lead, Latvia heads back to the powerplay, and we've got a good ol' fashioned miracle brewing on our hands here.
Here comes captain Peteris Bulans (undrafted) to make every single asshole in Canada as tight as humanly possible. Bulans plays for Chicoutimi in the QMJHL. He's not known as being an offensive defenseman. He's had 11 total goals over the past 3 seasons in the QMJHL. But he scored the biggest goal of his life when his team needed him the most last night. Tie game against the the favorites to win it all, on their home ice. Again, just getting this game to go to overtime was enough of a miracle to send some shockwaves throughout the world.
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But the Latvians weren't done just yet. Canada was already shell shocked. They had no idea what was going on. No idea what had just hit them. And they just forget how to put the puck in the back of the net. The entire overtime period goes by, and no goals were scored. 8 rounds of the shootout go by, Canada can't get anything past Latvian goalie Linards Feldbergs (undrafted). What a performance out of that kid, by the way.
Easily one of the greatest performances between the pipes in this tournament's history.
Finally, Eriks Mateiko has the game on his stick and absolutely rifles one past Jack Ivankovic.
He had scored the biggest goal of his career about 30 minutes ago at that point. And then followed it up with an even bigger one in the shootout.
Easily the most shocking result in the history of the World Juniors. Again, I don't want it to seem like Latvians have never put on a pair of skates before. But the team that Canada could send to the World Juniors just rostered by kids who didn't make the team would still have about 900% more NHL 1st round picks than this Latvian team. But that's why games are played on the ice and not on paper. Latvia plays Canada 10 times, the Canadians win 9 of them. But not last night. Because last night, Latvia was the greatest national junior team in the world. They skated with them and they shut them down. That was their time, and they went out there and took it. What a win.
P.S. -- Can't wait for Team USA to completely steamroll the fuck out of Latvia today at 3:30. Bring them back down to life a little bit with a good ol' fashioned shit pumping.