Latvia made an immediate return to the top division after winning the 2018 IIHF
Ice Hockey U18 World Championship Division I Group A on home ice at Arena Riga.


The Baltic nation wrapped up the title with a game to spare, winning its first four games in a competitive group. After some surprise results in the early stages, notably newly-promoted Slovenia's 3-2 win over Denmark and Germany's 1-0 verdict against last year's runner-up, Kazakhstan, that consistency was enough to settle the destination of the gold medal. Going into game four against the Danes, Latvia knew that victory would bring gold. After an early scare, the host ran out 4-1 winners thanks to a trio of third-period goals before 2,200 fans.

That result ensured that only Germany could match Latvia's tally of 12 points, and the head-to-head meeting between the countries had already ended in a 3-1 home win. Again, though, Latvia had to battle to get the win. The Germans took the lead with a power-play goal midway through the first period: Yannick Valenti converted a power-play chance when he collected the puck on the boards and surged forward to fire home from between the hash marks.

Latvia tied it up before the first intermission thanks to a breakaway goal. Glebs Prohorenkovs released his HK Riga team-mate Patriks Marcinkevics and the move ended with a well-placed shot from the left face-off spot.

The home team hit the front for the first time in the middle frame with Marcinkevics involved again. He won the puck in the corner, turned away from his opponent and sent a delicious feed onto the stick of Vladislavs Barkovskis for the 2-1 goal. Deniss Fjordorovs added a third in the 49th minute, taking advantage of the extra space during a passage of four-on-four play. He took Ernests Osinieks' pass into German territory and used the decoy move of Gustavs
Millars to split the defence and allow a shot that gave Florian Mnich no chance
in the German net.

Having secured its gold medals, Latvia went on to complete a perfect record of five wins from five games thanks to a tight 2-1 success over Kazakhstan on Sunday evening. Osnieks scored on a 5-on-3 power play to cancel out Yernar Musabayev's early opener for the Kazakhs, then Millars grabbed the winner in the 56th minute. Kazakhstan's defeat cost the team a bronze medal.

This year's Latvian team was almost completely fresh. Incoming head coach Olegs
Sorokins, a much-travelled defenceman in a playing career that began in 1991/92
and only came to an end last season, shuffled the pack. Only goalie Janis Voris
returned from the roster that was relegated in Slovakia a year ago, and he impressed in a tournament where he allowed just two goals in his three starts with an SVG of over 96%. He was voted Best Goaltender of the tournament while two Germans won the other awards: Moritz Seider as Best Defenceman and Yannick Valenti as Best Forward.

In general, it was the defence that impressed on the host's side: the tournament's scoring leaders came from Germany, which scored 22 times in five games with Valenti potting five of them and Taro Jentzsch leading the scoring with seven (1+6) points. No Latvian player made a big impact on the scoring charts, but the team had 14 different skaters with at least one point over the course of the tournament.

Germany took silver behind Latvia, with Denmark grabbing bronze despite losing three of its five games. The Danes tied with Kazakhstan on six points, but the head-to-head verdict went their way thanks to a 4-2 victory when the teams met on Thursday.

At the foot of the table, Slovenia dropped to Division IB despite a promising start to the tournament. A narrow 1-2 loss against the host was followed by a 3-2 victory over Denmark to give the Slovenes a great chance of staying at this
level after last season's promotion. However, it all went wrong after that: Slovenia lost its next three games by big margins, including a crucial 0-5 loss
against Norway. That was the Norwegians' only success of the tournament, but it
ensured a head-to-head advantage over Slovenia and kept them in Division IA for
another season.

Click here for scores and stats.
Click here to watch the full games.

ANDY POTTS

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