Latvia captain Olivers Murnieks showed his on-ice brilliance once again in the final, picking up a puck in his own end and skating the length of the ice, around the Danish team, and finishing with a forehand to backhand goal, the nicest one of the game.
Murnieks decided once was fun but twice is better, scoring a very similar end-to-end, unassisted goal in the third period, Latvia’s ninth of the game. The winners would add one more and the celebration was on in Korea (and, most likely, in Riga!).
“It feels amazing, something I have never experienced before,” said Murnieks. “For sure, this is my highest achievement so far and I am very happy about this and the team. The team wanted it so bad and I also wanted it. Getting a gold medal at the Olympics is amazing. The guys were just perfect.”
Latvia, just as Hungary on the women’s side, won all nine of its games and was the team to watch at these Youth Olympic Games. Murnieks said this is just the start for he and his under-16 teammates.
“Everybody wants to be a team. Nobody thinks about themselves,” said Murnieks. “Every one of us has a future in pro hockey. We started it here.”
In the men’s bronze medal game, Austria scored a powerplay goal in the third to make it 6-5 but that was as close as it would get in a loss to Kazakhstan. The Kazakhs had a 4-1 lead after the first, 5-3 lead after two and narrowly held on to win the bronze medal.
Kazakhstan took control of the game with three goals in three minutes of the first as it jumped ahead 4-1, setting the stage for a minor upset, as Austria had won an earlier game between the teams in the preliminary round.
The third goal of that flurry came off a nice snap shot from Anuar Akhmetzhanov from the point.
“This game was surreal. The teamwork we performed on the ice was outstanding,” said Bexultan Makysh. “Even the guys who were not scoring were falling and blocking and putting every effort to contribute to the game, especially our goalkeeper.
“We all did what we could and we realized this was the last front here that we had to defeat. Everyone of us gave everything we had.”
There was no better example of that commitment than in the last few moments of the game when Austria was buzzing to tie the game but Kazakhstan players got in lanes, blocked shots, won battles and did everything they could to protect the lead and win the bronze medal.