victory over the United States. Latvia fulfills its dream of winning the World Cup bronze

Dramatically Little Latvia wins its first World Championship medal at the World Ice Hockey Championships. In Tampere, Finland, Latvia won the bronze medal match against the United States 4-3 after extra time.

Kristjans Redlins is the name of the new Latvian folk hero. After 82 seconds, the 25-year-old defender from the second division of the AHL shot to the outside to win and finally brought the arena, which was filled with Finns from Latvia or Latvia, into a boil.

The Americans, who were very impressive in the group stage and in the quarterfinals (3-0 against the Czech Republic), snatched a 3-2 lead in the last minutes of normal time, just as in the semifinals against Germany. , then lost in overtime.

The Redlins had already equalized to make it a good 3:3 with five minutes left. Previously, as in the semi-final against Canada, the Latvians failed to make ends meet and threatened to leave empty-handed. Instead, the country of just 1.8 million people won its first medal in World Cup history. The United States had already finished fourth in Tampere a year earlier.

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