The Latvian Ice Hockey Federation (LIHF), together with their Finnish colleagues, wishing to repeat the joint experience of 2023, became the only candidates to host the World Championship in 2030.
The proposal to host the championship together came from the Finnish side, said Edgars Buncis, a board member of the Latvian Ice Hockey Federation (LIHF), who is part of the board of the federation's subsidiary "Hokeja akadēmija." It was "Hokeja akadēmija" that organized the last two World Championships in Riga and is ready to do it for the third time.
"One of our arguments when submitting the bid is that we will finally be able to organize the championship properly, because the previous two times it was not so. In 2021, the decision to hold the tournaments of both groups in Riga was made only one hundred days before the championship began, and it was during the COVID period, while the 2023 championship was assigned to us only a year before it took place, when it was decided that it could not be held in Russia. Work is already underway - today representatives of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) are coming to us for a technical visit to familiarize themselves with the arena, training facilities, and hotels. Formally, although it is unlikely, the IIHF congress may not vote for us and postpone the decision for a year, but I think everything will be fine," Buncis said.
Three years ago, the World Championship matches took place in Tampere and Riga, but the semifinals and finals were held in Finland. The Latvian national team returned from Tampere with bronze medals. It would be logical to expect that this time the decisive matches would take place in Latvia, but this will not happen - the battle for medals will again take place in Finland.
"There is a rational logic to this distribution of the decisive matches, as the semifinals and finals involve a higher licensing fee for hosting, and, in my opinion, tickets for the medal matches are quite difficult to sell, especially in Latvia. Given these circumstances, we did not even insist on holding them ourselves," Buncis explained.
