[1][2] The first hockey match on Latvian soil took place on February 15, 1909, with two teams facing Union and Strēlnieka Dārzs.

A crew member from Rīga was Bruno Kalniņš, who was sitting in Latvian Parliament at that time and later in political exile in Sweden.

[4] With the international recognition of the association, various hockey clubs have emerged in the larger cities, including Universitas Sports, Wanderer, Union, Armijas Sporta Klubs (ASK) from Riga and Olimpiade from Liepāja.

[5] The first official game of the Latvia men's national ice hockey team, which consisted of pure amateurs, took place on February 27, 1932.

In 1936, Latvia participated for the first time in Winter Olympics, but all three games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen were lost: 0:11 to Canada, 2: 9 to Poland and 1: 7 against Austria.

The Latvian hockey team had played a total of 26 games, including six wins, 16 defeats and four draws with a goal difference of 37:93, until 1940, the year of Soviet occupation and loss of independence.

For the implementation of this plan, a Soviet delegation from Moscow drove to Riga, which returned there with a handwritten Russian translation of the Canadian ice hockey rules.

With the descent of Daugava into the second division began for the Latvian hockey a time of mediocrity, which lasted until the end of the sixties.

Apart from some international friendlies against teams from Finland, Dukla Trenčín and Poldi Kladno from Czechoslovakia, Novosibirsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk, no further events from this period are worth mentioning.

Due to the low playful potential of the Dinamo players, he set with the establishment of four rows of attack a strategy that used no Soviet team until then.

In addition, he won twice in his career the title of the best scorer of the Soviet League and was once awarded the best striker in the World Cup.

As one of the main culprits for the defeat in the then crucial game against the Team USA, the so-called Miracle on Ice, was also considered Balderis.

The following season Dinamo Riga was able to celebrate the biggest success in the club's history by winning Soviet Championship League.

With this success Dinamo was entitled to take part in the Super Series, an annual comparison between teams from the USSR and the National Hockey League, in addition to the former Soviet CSKA Moscow champion , In addition, Irbe and Samoilovs were selected in 1988 in the Soviet Union national ice hockey team.

[9] Due to the political turmoil, Latvian ice hockey collapsed and players dispersed in leagues around the world.

In the spring of 1992, Edmonton Oilers and Boston Bruins camps were held in Rīga, under which Sergejs Žoltoks and Grigorijs Panteļejevs were contracted.

Many other players tried their luck in North America and played mostly in Minor Leagues, but did not make it into the NHL, so many returned home.

[10] The returnees from North America found a financially troubled country in which the hockey game for survival and players abruptly left their teams as soon as they offered a chance abroad.

[11][12] Latvia is one of the smaller member countries of the IIHF with (in 2017) a total of 6,699 registered ice hockey players, including 1,888 juniors and 101 women.

Shareholders of the franchise are several companies and individuals, among which Itera Latvija (Latvian gas company belonging to Gazprom),[13] Guntis Ulmanis (the fifth president of Latvia), Aigars Kalvītis (former prime minister of Latvia), Kalvitis has already invested 50,000 lats in Dinamo Riga and is planning another 150,000 lats and Aldis Pauniņš belong.

This is intended to give young and recovering players in particular the opportunity to play in a farm team match practice.

[16] After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the IIHF introduced qualifying tournaments for the Ice Hockey World Cup, as many new national associations wanted to participate.

The Latvian national team won their World Championship | 1992 | qualifying matches against the Baltic neighbors Estonia and Lithuania and was allowed one year later participate in the C-World Cup in Slovenia.

The Latvian national team has never reached beyond the quarter finals of any major ice hockey tournament, except for the 2023 championship after winning against USA and got a bronze medal.

The players of the national team are mainly recruited from the two top clubs of Latvian women's hockey, SHK Laima Riga and IceGirls.

The SHK Laima Riga has participated in the IIHF European Women Championships several times and took part in the second round tournament in Berlin in October 2007.

Teodors Bļugers became the second Latvian to have won the Stanley Cup in the 2022-23 NHL season with the Vegas Golden Knights.

The other Latvian NHL players are Aleksandrs Kerčs, Grigorijs Panteļejevs, Pēteris Skudra, Viktors Ignatjevs, Herberts Vasiļjevs, Kaspars Astašenko, Raitis Ivanāns, Jānis Sprukts, Mārtiņš Karsums, Harijs Vītoliņš, Kaspars Daugaviņš, Artūrs Kulda, Zemgus Girgensons, Teodors Bļugers, Rūdolfs Balcers, Ronalds Ķēniņš, Oskars Bārtulis, Elvis Merzļikins, Kristers Gudļevskis, Kristiāns Rubīns, Artūrs Šilovs and Matīss Kivlenieks.

[23] During the 2000 World Championship, the Latvian Parliament interrupted its sessions so that the politicians could follow the national team's games on television.

To calm the situation, the Latvian player Jānis Sprukts spoke to the audience over the stadium speakers: "Of course the referee makes many mistakes and we are not happy either, but please do not throw anything on the ice.