The US and the Latvian national hockey teams were playing an early round game in the World Championship in hockey that is currently held in Helsinki and Stockholm (May 3 -19 2013). The championships are split between the two cities the same way it was last year with the finals being played in the bigger arena in Stockholm, Sweden on May 19.
The game started out pretty uninspired and I can’t say that it was a very well played game from either side. One should keep in mind that these are the national teams and it was the second game in the tournament at least for the US, the guys are probably not used to each other at this point since the opportunities to train and play together have likely been very limited. Despite all that the US did what they needed to and were expected to do and won the game. This, despite the fact that it took a whole period and some to get any goals going, and the first goal was a Latvian goal. The US quickly came back, evened out and got ahead. After that there was never really any question which way the game was going. The Latvian fans lived up to their reputation of being among the loudest ones around, banging their drums and sounding their horns even long after all hope of being able to pull off an upset should have evaporated. I think this was a positive – at least in the face of victory.
